Week 11; Post 3

3). Pick one concept or idea from this week's assigned reading and discuss it.  Be sure to relate the concept/idea to your personally by using examples from your life and/or experiences

One topic that I found really interesting this week was the topic of Revenge. It is something that some people really have a desire to partake in and some people just don’t. Personally, I never really had any desire at all to participate or seek revenge on anyone. It is something that I just never really thought was worth my time. BUT I know tons of other people enjoy the aspect of getting revenge. One of the girls I coach for cheer came to practice not too long ago with a crazy story of fun teenage revenge. I guess one of the boys from school came and set fireworks off in her front lawn. It upset her parents and upset her. So both of her parents, a friend of hers, and her all climbed into her dad’s truck and set off to get their revenge. The found a road kill opossum scraped it off the ground with a shovel, drove it to the boy’s house and left it on the hood of his car. The next day everyone knew and everyone knew to not mess with her or her family. In this case, revenge is sweet, but I have seen too many times that it just causes too much hurt.

 

Week 11; Post 2

2). After reading Chapter 12 in its entirety, answer the following question:  When have false attributions you have made about another exacerbated a conflict situation?  Have there been times when making accurate attributions about the other has helped you?

Chapter 12 is all about false attributions. According to the text, an attribution is “an inference made about the causes of another’s behavior.” That means a false attribution is a false assumption made about the reasons for someone else’s behavior and an accurate attribution is an assumption about the cause for someone’s behavior that ends up being true.

At one point, my manager at one of my jobs was being rude and was just difficult to work with. I kept thinking that it had to be because of something that I did or that she just had decided that she didn’t like me. I didn’t really know why either of those things would be true but it seemed like the only reasonable answer. It turned out that there was a new position opening up and the company was going to ask me to fill it. She was acting like that because she wanted the position and was upset that I got it over her even though I was technically below her on a hierarchy. This was a false attribution that I made.

An accurate attribution that I make often has to do with my boyfriend. He is generally a wonderful person to be around and does not like any type of confrontation, but every once in a while he gets upset and yells at me for little or no reason. When this happens, it means he is hungry. There has never been a time that I’ve been wrong about this, it is definitely an accurate attribution!!

Week 11; Post 1

1). Going back to Chapter 10, answer the following question:  Do an internet search using the terms forgiveness, reconciliation, and revenge.  What kids of sites do you find?  Which term produces more results?  Why do you think that is?

When I looked up Forgiveness I found “About 55,300,000 results.” There was everything from forgiveness in the encyclopedia, forgiveness and religion and forgiveness in psychology. The most common thing though was music videos for songs called Forgiveness.

Reconciliation got 51,900,000 results and all of the results were definitions, encyclopedia entries, and religious websites. It seems that most of every link that was not a definition or description of the word, was about reconciliation with religion. There was the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Reconciliation Ministry, and The Sacraments: Reconciliation.  

When looking up revenge, I found mostly links to the ABC show (amazing show). The first 3 pages of my 264,000,000 results were all about the definition and/or the show. Towards the end of the third page there was one video of a driver taking revenge on another driver…Other than that, nothing.

The term that produces the most results is Revenge. I think that is mostly due to its staggering results for the TV show and the use of revenge in video games (there was a ton of links to video game revenge ideas).  

Week 10; Post 3

3). Pick one concept or idea from this week's assigned reading and discuss it.  Be sure to relate the concept/idea to your personally by using examples from your life and/or experiences.

One topic that I really enjoyed this week was the concept of online communication. I have done some research in the past on online communication as nonverbal communication such as emails and instant messaging but now days, online communication is so much more. Less than ten years ago, there was tons of online communication. I definitely had two email addresses, 5 or so screen names to IM people, and a MySpace. Most communication was through written word like emails or IM’s or comments on a social media site and every once in a while, people would use a webcam. When I used to webcam with someone, It was mostly just looking at them and then IMing them. It was not common to use the microphone feature at all. Now days, we have access to all of those same technologies as well as new technology. All of these new technologies have taken nonverbal online communication to a whole different level, online communication is no longer mostly non-verbal. Skype, Facetime, and even Chat Roulette that use the internet to connect people nonverbally. I feel privileged to be a part of this era where people get to use so many different and new types of technology!

Week 10; Post 2

2). After reading Chapter 10 in its entirety, answer the following question:  Is there an event in your life that you find difficult to forgive?  What is it?  What makes it so difficult to forgive the other person?  If you are not experiencing a difficult event now, describe a past event that you have found difficult to forgive.

I feel like this question can be directly related to the question we had a couple weeks ago about trust and if we ever found it difficult to trust someone again. I tend to always forgive people, especially for something that was completely an accident. One thing I always say is that I will forgive but will not forget. I have a great memory and I definitely use it. I always forgive people but if it they did something bad then it is hard to forget what they have done. For example (same example as my trust post), when I was younger, I had a boyfriend who cheated on me. I quickly forgave him but it was hard to forget what he had done. Every time he went out I was skeptical that he was doing something that he wasn’t supposed to. So while I forgave him, I lost a bit of trust in him.

Week 10; Post 1

1). After reading Chapter 9 in its entirety, answer the following question:  If you are a member of a social networking website such as Facebook, think about the way you use it.  How do you present yourself?  What impressions do you hope people will get from reading your profile?  Have there been times people have posted something to your profile that you wished they hadn't?  How does this relate to conflict and communication?

Facebook is one of those things that people do not always think about before they use. People really just post whatever the feel like and do not realize that there might be consequences to what they say. I know that there are a lot of companies that check your Facebook when you apply for jobs, I have even heard of places going as far as handing you a computer at an interview and asking you to log in to your Facebook account so they can look at everything. When I use mine, I really make sure that I am being appropriate. I coach school age and high school sports where a lot of the girls that I coach want to be my Facebook friend or their parents do. So I really try to represent myself in a professional manner. I try to not swear (too much) and the most “inappropriate” thing that I will post will be a picture of me with an alcoholic drink…but never me drunk! I think this is because of years of cheering on a team in high school and at SJSU where online, I am representing my team so I learned at a young age to be “appropriate.” This relates to conflict and communication because Facebook is now a main form of communication in this world and having negative Facebook postings can create conflicts such as jobs not wanting to hire you. Also, things can be misinterpreted on Facebook and therefore make you look bad!

Week 9; Post 3

3). Pick one concept or idea from this week's assigned reading and discuss it.  Be sure to relate the concept/idea to your personally by using examples from your life and/or experiences.

I really enjoyed the whole concept of managing stress in this chapter. Most of my life, I have been someone who allowed stress to get to me and really change my mood. When I was in 5^th grade, my mom started allowing me to take “personal days” where I stayed home from school to just take a break. As I got older, it got worse. The last guy that I dated was typically in a bad mood and his negativity stressed me out. I think that a lot of my stress stemmed from that.  He was older so I felt that I should look up to him and take what he did as an example of what I should do. I felt like since he was always negative, I shouldn’t have to “grow up” yet and that included reducing my stress or negativity. It was definitely a more teenage outlook. When we broke up, I took it upon myself to have a positive outlook. I started doing a lot of the things that the book suggested. I started saying no to things that would stress me out and not benefit me, I asked myself if I was happy and if I wasn’t I would look at how to be happier. Soon the effort helped me reduce a lot of the stress in my life!

Week 9; Post 2

2). After reading Chapter 8 in its entirety, answer the following question:  Are you a person who tends to blow up, do you express your anger calmly, or do you simply not express it at all?  What are the outcomes of expressing anger in this way?

I have always been a mix when it comes to anger. There are some people that I can calmly express my anger to, but only in some situations. Typically, I express my anger about other people to my boyfriend or my mom. I have no problem telling them how I feel, but when it comes to being angry at one of them, I tend to hold it in until I blow up. I really put effort into this not happening. I always try to express as I get angry, even to them but sometimes I don’t want to deal with it, so I hold it in and do not express anything until I blow up. When this happens, I tend to get really emotional and so does the other person. In the end it causes more harm than good and I realize that I should have just addressed the situation when it first happened.

Week 9; Post 1

1). After reading Chapter 7 in its entirety, answer the following question:  Look at your work and school commitments.  How might you apply each of the "three solutions" to improve how you feel about your job and school?

Each of the three solutions are designed to help us manage stress. The first solution is to approach each task with a positive attitude. If we feel like they are tasks that we want to complete, then we will not feel so negative about doing them. The second solution suggests that we treat work as a game. This way work is fun or more like play than work. The third and final solution is all about combining work with play. Instead of trying to turn your work into play, integrate it into play. When it comes to school, homework and tests are often a negative task for me, so I really do try to come at them with a positive attitude. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I have never been successful at turning homework or quizzes into games or play but I have had success integrating them into play. Mostly television. I have always worked better when I watch something that I enjoy while I do homework. This way, I can relax and enjoy my time but also get work done. In some ways this makes it hard because it takes me a lot longer because I am distracted, but I tend to be less stressed in the end.

When it comes to my job, I do not really get stressed because I am currently working as a coach and typically, my work is play.

Week 7; Post 3

3). Pick one concept or idea from this week's assigned reading and discuss it.  Be sure to relate the concept/idea to your personally by using examples from your life and/or experiences.

One concept that truly stood out to me this week was the concept of Unhealthy Trust. Unhealthy trust is being too trusting in others. People who are too trusting can be gullible and believe outrageous things that others say. I thought that it was really interesting that there is actually a name for this! All my life, I always find it unhealthy for many people (usually girls) to just trust everyone and everything that people say. It makes people come off as stupid a lot of the time because being that gullible means that you typically aren’t thinking. For example, when I was a freshman in high school, my best friend looked up to her brother and hung on his every word. He was a few years older and definitely took advantage of this. One night he told her that they were going to go “hunting for a rare animal” (I forgot what he called it) out on Hicks Road (it is a windy road that has rumors of murders and all kinds of things). So she trusted him and he took her out there. Taught her how to make the animal call and as she got out of the car to call for the animal, he drove away, leaving her in the dark, in the woods, in a scary location. He eventually came back and got her while laughing about how gullible she was. She clearly was not thinking about how a) dumb of an idea it was and b) how there definitely is not a “rare animal that you can call for at night” out there.

Now, I am definitely someone who trusts a lot of people but I do not think that I do it in an unhealthy way. I tend to always want to see the good in people and trust them but I do understand when they are not being trustworthy.

Week 7; Post 2

2). After reading Chapter 6 in its entirety, answer the following question:  How does it feel when you are in an unbalanced power relationship?  What is it like to have more power?  Less power?

To me, life is all about balance. It is the motto that I live my life by and I even have the word “Balance” tattooed on my foot. In general, balance is one of the most important things about life and I really try to use balance in all aspects of my life, especially my relationships with other people. Power is something that everyone needs to have in every relationship. For example, in my relationship with my mom, she has more power than I do because she pays for school and my insurance still. These are things that I would definitely struggle paying for on my own and therefore she will have leverage over me when it comes to anything. But I balance it out by having more power over her in the way that I help my family. I have a younger brother (10 years old) that I often have to take care of when my parents want to do something. I always have the power to say “no, I’m too busy to help” and that is a power that is extremely helpful to me. The balance between the two powers works out quite well for a balanced relationship! When it comes to my romantic relationships, I think that power is divided equally between the two of us.

Week 7; Post 1

1). After reading Chapter 6 in its entirety, answer the following question:  When have you ever lost trust in someone?  How did you react to the loss of trust?  How was the trust restored?

 

I have never truly lost trust in anyone. My family has always made fun of me because I tend to have too much faith in people and tend to believe in the best in all people. The closest thing to losing trust in a person that I have ever experienced was once when I was younger, my boyfriend at the time cheated on me. It proved to me that when it came to instances involving other girls, I could never trust him again. We eventually made up and trust was restored in some aspects of our relationship. I trusted him when it came to things that involved school, family or our relationship in general but when it came to other girls, I did not trust him around them anymore. After a few years when I started college, I started to trust him more again; but it may have been because in general, I was pulling away from him by that point.