Dennotation vs. Connotation

Dennotation is the specific, literal meaning of a word. But, Connotation is the figurative cultural assumption that we make which the statemeant implies. One example is the stop sign. It can be taken in the literal sense as you need to stop here, or the figurative statemeant as a warning to risk and possibly a ticket. Each of which should imply that you need to stop here.

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Operator?

While playing telephone today in class, I realized how easily one message can be interpreted and changed while going from person to person. I think that this shows how much everyone can always work on listening better and more effectively. If we had taken the time to understand what we had heard and then analyze what had been said, the group would have done better in the game as well as learned how to be more effective when listening as well as explaining a message. But I think that it was also a good way to demostrate how easy it is to misunderstand someone.

"One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody’s listening."

— Franklin P. Jones

 

"Just because I didn’t do what you told me, doesn’t mean I wasn’t listening to you!"

— Hank Ketcham

Halo vs. Horns

Most people that I have talked to about a certain teacher told me that he/she was not nice at all. After hearing multiple horror stories that happened in their class room and all of the strict rules and regulations, I dreaded having them as a teacher. So by the time I was sentenced to be one of their students I had instilled in my brain that I would not get along with the teacher and the whole class would go horribly. But needing the credit for school as well as a good looking transcript for colleges, I stuck with my schedual. As the class proceeded through out the quarter I found more and more reasons why that person is unlikable. But as I talked to them more out side of class to get help on assignments and specifics on the class, I learned that they are a decent person and I should have given them a chance right from the start and maybe the begining of the quarter would have gone differently. I think that this example of the horn effect has better allowed me to understand the deffinition of it as well as see what to look for in order to not allow myself to get influenced by it again.

Everyone Can Use a Little Help

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
― C.G. Jung
I think that in order to understand ourselves, we need to be able to not only ask ourselves what we are like, but also get feedback on how we act or portray our feelings. This way we are better equiped to be our best as well as improve our own self awareness. That does not mean that everthing that everyone says should be taken to heart, but we should also welcome constructive criticism. We can do this by following the four ways that we can icrease our self awareness. Each of these steps can be useful, especially when we are trying to build a relationship with another person. But the key is that we can't learn about ourselves alone.

My little helper at the show

The Immediate Future

Being a Senior has its perks like knowing it is the last time you will have High School. But it also comes with the constant question of what you will do after High School. But what do you say if you dont quite know yet? Saying undecided starts to get old...maybe I could make up exciting job titles:). But that would be lieing and I would possibly have to make up schools and other details that provide that type of education for that proffession and get a lot more in depth than what I had hoped. So I dont think I will be doing that. I would like to say that I am very long term oriented because I have saved money for my future plans and thought about what I would like to do when I get older, but I fail when it comes to deciding what I will be doing for the rest of my life. I would like to be more goal oriented to better my long term comitments, there fore being long term oriented. I think that maybe if I research different areas of jobs that interest me maybe I will be more commited to finding the answer to my question.

My Spanish Experience

Through my school career I have been in many Spanish classes. The main reason that I take this class is to better understand the culture and the language, or the process of enculturation. I have found this to be much harder than acculturation, mostly because I have grown up my whole life living the actual cultures and ideas that my family follows. Because of this it is not hard for me to understand, unlike many ideas used in the Spanish culture, especially the language. I think that it is because of these differences between other cultures that it is important that we keep an open mind and keep biases and stereotypes aside in order to properly communicate with others.

Self-Disclosure

Self- Disclosure is some thing that happens to every one of us. Even if we dont know it, we reveel things about ourselves that we would not have in certain situations, or even to certain people or groups. Because of this we tend not to allow our selves to be completely understood by every one around us, and that is where stereotypes can begin. But at the same time not every one needs to know about every thing that we do or have done. I think that the game that we played in class yesterday was a really fun way to express something about us that not every one in the class may know. Granted towards the end we just started making general observations to get enough people to get up and run, but it still was a very effective way to express and better understand self-disclosure.

Communication Done Wrong

Every morning my sister and I leave the house around 7:20. But, without telling me, my sister had planned on being at the school at 7:15...and it takes us fifteen minutes to get to school. So as i walked down the stairs at 6:59 my sister yelled that we need to leave now. I was not prepared for that at all, as i still needed to feed the horses. As i quickly left the house to go to the barn my sister shot me a harsh stare proving her displeasure. During the whole ride to school she wouldn't talk to me at all. I tried to explain that I would have been more than happy to take her to school on time, if she had better communicated what she had wanted before the situation became an emergency in her eyes. I feel like the whole morning would have gone a lot diferently if we had a better communication technique, such as discussing when we would have to leave for school. Maybe I will have to talk to her about it later...when she isn't so mad.

First couple days

We have just recently started class, but so far i think that we have learned quite a lot...even though most of it was done by throwing tennis balls across the hallway. I think that by doing this we learned that different types of communication are possible in any event, but some are more useful than others. I found that nonverbal communication made me pay more attention, but the verbal communication got other's attention more quickly. Either way it was fun and we got a break from the usual notes.