Current Crisis in life

Well I think that I'm working on getting at least caught up with my school work. I think I may have missed a week on blogging. We have this test on Tuesday and I have not read much material, actually I have only 3 chapters read. I haven't even looked at the essay questions, but I do have my rough draft of the family interview done.

My plan of attack this weekend is to finish all the reading material, retype my class notes and answer the essay questions. Sounds simple right? Well I think it will take a lot of preparation! I'm stressed about it but I think I will be able to get it done no problem.

My other class is too damanding and that class is being put off this weekend so that I can prep for Tuesday's test. So I am blogging another irrelevant blog this week. I sure hope that I can get real and blog about the reality of my life someday, because I love listening in class and I learn so much that answers a lot of my life's questions. I sure wish I had more time. Anyway I'm out! Sean+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A little late.

This post is a little late. I've been trying to keep my head on straight between breaking up with my boyfriend of 3 years (who I lived with), moving apartments and starting a new job. It has been a hectic few weeks. Now everything is resolved and I'm moving into my one bedroom apartment in less than a month! I doubt I will ever have roommates again. I'm not going to go into detail about my living situation drama. But I will share what I have learned from this. People change. Sometimes people change for the better and a lot of times, people change and grow apart. Living with someone you are close with, puts a whole new spin on your relationship. It can pull best friends apart and ruin relationship. Do not take moving in with someone lightly. It seems to me, the best situations are when the roommates are just acquaintances. That way, they don't hang out a ton and get on eachothers nerves. However, that's just my oppinion.

more class overlap

So I was up until 6 this morning writing a paper for another class so I apologize if none of what I'm about to say makes sense or if there isn't much intellectual material in what I'm about to say.

I've recently had another experience with material in my classes overlapping, particularly this class and my Intro. to Women and Gender class. This week we have been talking about families, their structure and function and how things are different and most of the time, more difficult, for families with homosexual parents. And on Friday we will be talking about a "marriage/partnership contract" that we all have to fill out. It is basically asking questions of you and your partner (or in my case my idea partner since I do not have a boyfriend) about power and gendered duties in a relationship. The questions pertain to the division of household labor, finances, family size, religion, last name, divorce and then a final assessment of the relationship. It will be quite interesting to discuss in class on Friday and for me to go through and answer the questions as to what the division of such tasks and the answers to decisoins with my "ideal spouse" will be. I think it will be good for me because I have my standards but some of these things are not things I have thought about, so I am sure that my list of "standards" will grow as I do this exercise.

I hope that all pertains to Family Science in some way or another. I am just surprised that I stayed awake long enough to type all of this!

Decisions in Marriage

I also thought that class Tuesday was very interesting. I think that it really hit home for me because I am in a serious relationship at this time. My boyfriend and I have been talking about religion lately which is a hard topic for us. I was born catholic and my family left the church when I was very young. We were the first from our very popular 'catholic name' to leave the church and there were many hard feelings. Now that I am older and have been involved with both churches I do not believe that I could go back to the catholic faith. Don't get me wrong I am christian but not catholic. My boyfriend is catholic but he does not feel strongly about his religion. He doesn't go to church regularly and doesn't take it what I would consider seriously. So it has caused a lot of conflict in our relationship at this time when considering marriage etc. We somewhat touched on religion and how it fits into the sources of influence but I could also relate on other levels to this discussion. I think that any relationship has its conflicts but it's how you deal with those conflicts. I am someone who puts myself up for conflicts and arguing doesn't bother me. My parents argued when I was growing up but they always got through it and it was constructive, they never yelled or were violent. My boyfriend on the other hand, his parents are divorced, mother is happily remarried and his father has since had another divorce and several unhappy relationships. So he doesn't like to argue in any way.

Control Freaks

Class on tuesday was really interesting and gave a lot of insight in to not only marriage relationships, but any relationship. One of the big things that underlines the decision making is one person wanting to gain control, they want to win, it's about competing. If only us humans wouldn't allow pride to take over our lives and submit to eachother, the focus would be on building eachother up instead of trying to build yourself up and pushing the other person down. Being humble also frees both people from being manipulated by eachother to get something out of the other person. I've noticed times in my life where I will be talking with my parents or even friends and instead of letting go and admitting I'm wrong or don't know, the conversation turns to an argument in me wanting to gain control and still sound credible and not humiliated. I've seen this sometimes in my family. My mom is more apt to have to be right, and so instead of admitting something wrong to my dad or a mistake, she will work so hard to be right when nothing about the problem is being solved, or it has already been answered. When couples try not to gain control it not only solves the actual problem or decision, but it also frees eachother of the stress or having to argue and work at being right.

my experience with influence

I think Tuesday's discussion was very interesting. I felt I really connected with this lecture because it seemed totally relevant to what I am currently going through in my relationship. I have recently noticed and become aware of the principle of least interest. And how much it works, sad to say. But I say that having been on the short end of the stick as well. I always end up caring "too much" in a relationship and it I feel that it ends up being my downfall. In the past, when I showed how much I cared/expressed all my feelings, that other person has used that to their advantage, because they know I care "x" amount, and used it against me. In addition, that person also knew they could use coercive influence on me, saying if I don't do this, or stop doing this, then they wouldn't do that, or they would break up with me, etc. Which then put me in a deeper whole because they had all that power over me. Then it comes to a point where you're fed up with it. You decide your not going to take that treatment from them anymore (of course after failing time and time again to leave that person), but you finally stand up for yourself and they are speechless because they know they dont want you to leave. You now have the power... And the roles are reversed. It is unfortunate that the relationship is turned into a game like that, because feelings get too involved and someone, if not both, end up hurt... Just my experience...

Influence lecture

I found class to be very interesting today. I guess once you have learned about healthy and destructive influence you really don't know you are doing something unhealthy. i use coercive influence all the time but it seems to be healthy and normal to us. For example if you do this for me i will do this for you. or better said if you don't do this particular thing then i won't do for you. I'm not just talking about sex but sometimes that does come up. Also, in my relationship we have a really balanced influence on just about everything. We try to share most of the power in all areas but one of us is sometimes better equipped to handle a certain situation than the other and we know and accept that. One thing that seems to come up in our relationship quite often is that one of us is very passive and the other is aggressive so probably since i am aggressive and he is passive, i kinda make a decision before he even has a chance to put in his input. sometimes it sparks a diagreement but mostly i think that he doesn't like the responsibilty of decision making anyway.

Decisions Decisions Decisions

I thought today's (Tues) topic over decisions in marriage was fantastic. I have never really looked at making decisions from this perspective and after talking and learning about it-I think it's something pretty important to know especially going into a relationship where your're going to be making very important decisions. Atleast for me, that's how it was. I'm just so happy I'm taking this class right at this time because it seems so revelant in my life, and the things we learn are actually things that are preparing me for my future-no matter what I end up doing. I can see the bases of influence all over my life with different people. I don't know about you, but in my life the people who tend to use legitimate, coercive, and expert influence are the males. I think this might go back to the gender roles. Like we talked about, guys seem to be more problem solvers and like to take control. Girls tend to be the ones who will give up something out of love or respect, or who like to compromise and use the reward influence. This isn't a bad thing and it is not the same for everyone, but this is what I see in my life and experiences.
Another thing I found interesting was the difference between assertiveness and aggressivness. This opened my eyes because I have always thought of myself as someone who is assertive and doesn't let people walk all over them or use them. I stand up for myself and won't back down if it's something I feel strongly about. What I realized was sometimes I might be agressive in doing this. Some of the things he mentioned about saying "end of story," or "that's just how it is going to be no questions asked" are things I could picture myself saying in a situtation I felt strongly about. Now, you wouldn't catch me throwing something out of anger or physically hurting someone so I think this 'agressive' concept is hard to grasp. He says it all goes back to wanting to be in control of the situation, but I think that's kind of human nature-to want things your way. I don't know...any other thoughts?

boxes vs. ball of wire brains analogy

I really enjoyed the humorous video clip we watched about the difference between mens' and womens' brains, the boxes vs. ball of wire theory. I've actually heard this theory before except that it was waffle brains vs. spaghetti brains. It really struck me how, as a woman, my brain functions as a ball of wire because the other day absolutely everything seemed to be running through my brain and I felt like I had just had a very large amount of caffiene when in fact I hadn't had any at all. And when I think back on how I've thought about things at different times in my life I definitly connect things in a manner that no man I know would ever think to connect things. I really just think the whole analogy is rather interesting. I wrote down the Web Site where you can order the whole DVD of the guy's workshops and I may just have to look into that for a good laugh, and possibly to show my parents too because I totally accused my dad of having pulled out his "nothing box" the other day:)

more ppl shld take this class

I wish that my boyfriend wld of taken this class...maybe he cld learn a thing or two about communicating. We learned that men are solution oriented but my boyfriend seems to be more ignore it oriented. When he or i has a problem his motto is to just let it go, stop worrying, everything will be fine, instead of talking it out or trying to fix the issue.
He will avoid an uncomfortable conversation at all costs. Is this common for men or is it just his particular personality? I for one hate avoiding issues, i like to take them head on and get the problem solved and over with. I hate ignoring something when it know something can be done about it. I think that if ppl dont communicate through problems they are only making them worse by leaving them stew.
I think this class is good just to take for life experience not just for a major. I am seriously gonna recommend this class to anyone i know looking for somthing to fill their schedule. If more ppl took this class and actually learned the lessons we go over I think a lot of ppl would be better off.

Men, Women and Communication

The lecture on communication was very informative. It made me think about the way the men in my life communicate. If I call my father with any problem, all he wants to do is fix it. Men see problems and think "This is the problem, this is what you need to do to fix it". That is one thing I love my father for. Then there is my mother. She is one of my best friends who I can talk to whenever I have a problem. She helps me talk through the issues and gets more into the emotional aspect of it. I recently came to find out, my parents had a very hard time communicating. My dad would try to fix the problems when all my mom wanted was someone to talk to about it. Communication can be learned. My parents went on a weekend retreat focused on helping marriages. They both came away with a different view on communication. If men and women were more informed on the differences in their communication patterns, maybe they would be more understanding of the opposite sex.

3/12/09 Blog on Communication

I thought that the conversations that we had in class about communication were really interesting. I thought that when we were talking about the different ways that males and females communicate was funny. I can so relate to all of that and I think that everyone can! I grew up in a really small town (there were 10 girls in my class). I have never gotten along very well with any girls so I always hung out with the guys in my class. I always got along great with them but I formed a really close bond with my mom and sister. I think/know that I did this because I needed a girl to talk to about those things that guys just don't understand. Now being far from home I call my mom at least 3 times a day, but it's not the same. I'm just not getting my interaction with other girls as much as I need and I think I'm taking it out on my boyfriend. Although he is adapting very well I think he gets annoyed with the fact that I tend to tell him about some of those things that only a girl would really care about. I just thought that the gender differences that we went over in class are right on. When guys communicate it is so different then communication with girls. Don't get me wrong I love hanging out and being with my boyfriend and all the guys but I just need my time every once and while with girls!

Cannot NOT Communicate!

So, in class while talking about communication and it's effectiveness and importance and ways to keep healthy communication in relationships, I thought of my roommates and soccer team. (I know this isn't boyfriend/girlfriend type, but it still applies and can help in future relationships). So, with my roommates, sometimes we don't confront eachother on issues, and then there becomes void, a cut off of communication - in other words, a giant elephant in the room that we are trying to hard to ignore and doesn't go away. And even in times that we would send messages, whether through body language or words, it wasn't always the message recieved. We know when the other person really means what they say or if they really care. So, I just wanted to see if you guys have experienced this with your roommates, or boyfriend or girlfriend. To get through this is to talk through it and get on the same page - there cannon be no communication and a relationship to remail healthy. I also have noticed this on my soccer team. When one person does bad or get physically exhausted, the communication shuts off completely - hurthing the whole team. Well, it's kind of the same in relationships. There needs to be communication, getting out of yourself to think about others, and create meaningful relationships.

Sean's Blog #8? 3/11/09

I don't know about the rest of you but I find the class very interesting. This is not a long blog, just a quick note that says I've done my blog for the week. Thanks, Sean.

communication lecture

Hello everyone,

I thought the lecture on communication today was very interesting. I guess i knew the basic of communication but never even thought of the level that it can reach. Like i knew that we communicate with our infants by holding them and touching them and they communicate with us by crying to tell us what they want. I have learned with my own children that they have a certain cry for certain needs they need met. They would whine when they were tired or would have a high pitched cry if they were in pain or if they were sick. And i became to know these crys very well after a while so that i wouldn't have to play the guessing game. Anyway again i thought todays lecture was very interesting!

Communication

I really enjoyed today's class over communication. It happened to be pretty appropriate timing because I had just been arguing about the stuff we talked about with my boyfriend before class. As soon as we started talking about the gender roles I had to smile because either God is funny or it was complete coincidence. Although the characteristics of each gender were solely patterns, I have seen them to be nothing but true. I am the connection and relationship oriented and affiliative type and at times I can be the solution oriented type. I see that with my mom, my sister, and my girl friends too. We are out to 'feel good'. Whether it be about ourselves or pleasing others, we try our best to connect, create bonds, and relate to other people. My dad, boyfriend, and guy friends are all the opposite. That doesn't mean they can't have relationships or be sympathetic, they just tend to be more action/solution searching and have that competitive side. I think this is where a lot of the misunderstanding and butting heads comes in. Because I communicate more from my heart, I look for that from my boyfriend-and because he communicates more with his head, he looks for that in me. Neither one of us has taken the time to think-well that's just how it is and that's okay. We both think that one side is better, just like in the Raymond clip, and that's how it should be. I think this discussion opened my mind, especially hearing it from a male, to see that either way is just how it is, just like other ways we are different, we have to accept the differentiating communication.

The Purpose of Engagement

I have really been enjoying our last few lectures because they apply to life, right now, at this age, and in the next few years to come. Dating, Mate Selection, Engagement and Marriage are things I will (hopefully) be confronting in the next 3-4 years and lots of my friends are confronting engagement and marriage right now. It's crazy how many weddings I have to go to this summer! (I think the count is up to between 8 and 10 so far). So, they are all in the period of engagement right now. I have seen a couple situations in the past couple of years though where things haven't worked out so well, and a lot of it was because the engagement was almost all strictly based around the "event" of the wedding itself and not the life-long commitment of marriage. For those reasons I really enjoyed the quote Dr. Hollist mentioned from his grandfather I believe, who said that Marriage is the process, not the event, or something like that. It, once again, brought up the process factor that we have been reiterating through this whole class. I highly agree with it because when I talk to my parents about marriage and relationships or here talks on dating and such, they are always mentioning how there are many sacrifices involved with marriage and dating and many times people don't realize this. They only look at the roses and kisses side of things and don't think about the thorns or the slobber associated with those (I'm trying to make a metaphor here). And this process/event theory is something that does not only apply to marriage but life in general. I'm sure most of us have heard somewhere along the line that there has to be pain and suffering so there can be joy and happiness. And this is all a part of the process of life. It's something I think about, whether consciously or subconsciously, nearly every day. And lastly, another metaphor that goes along with all this that I recently heard from a friend, and that is the "roller coaster" metaphor. It basically says that life is like a roller coaster and when you're at the top you have to remember how it feels at the bottom and when you're at the bottom you have to remember how it feels at the top. I really like that metaphor and the one from Dr. Hollist's grandfather - life is made up of a series of events but it's the process in between where life really happens. Okay, lots of metaphors this time, but I hope that all made sense. It makes sense to me and I am definitly learning from it all....the process that is:)

Dating

I thought the lecture on dating was interesting. It is weird that the aspects of dating are actually studied. When I think about dating, whether it be my personal dating life or that of others, I usually don't think of Sternberg's Love Triangle or the theories of attraction. But after hearing them I realized there is a lot of truth to them and I can think of examples for many of these theories in my real life. Like the idea of propinquity, I can relate to that. The more time I spent around this guy the more I felt attracted to him. Now I know why. Also the idea of similarity and attractiveness seems pretty obvious so I was not surprised to see that as part of the list. I must have interests in common with someone to be attracted to them, I'm not saying we have to like all the same things but it makes someone more attractive when they are into the same music, sports, movies as I am. Also I have seen Sternberg's Love Triangle play out in my friends relationships and in my own. It is interesting to pick out real life examples and know that there is some sort of theory to back it all up and put an explanation with it.

Dog = Future?

So, last time in class - tuesday - we talked about singleness and the "games" that are played and deciding which ones were constructive and which ones were destructive. Well, didn't really think about this, but one person talked about how one of the games is when one person gets the other person a dog. She also talked about how this can be a test in how each person will handle and treat future childre. I kind of laughed at the idea - I mean, how does getting the other person an animal shift committment or test the other person about their future together? Well, one of my good friend's boyfriend got her a dog recently. They have been dating for a long time, and so I talked to her about how this changed her perspective on the relationship. I was actually blown away because my friend said she'd thought a lot about being a mother. How she gets so frustrated with the dog, sometimes just ignores the little guy and tells it to shut up. She is a good "parent" to the dog, but those little instances make her scared to be a parent! I never would have thought that. I would say most of the time it would be a constructive intimacy game, depending on the couple and the motive behind the action. If the animal is simply a gift and the intention is not out of insecurity or testing and proving love, it can be constructive. What do you guys think?

family Science

Hey everyone,

I posted last night and totally didn't proof read my comments. I got back into the account today and read what i wrote last night. I'm really not an idiot. I guess that is what happens when you are tired. Anyway i was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on the genogram project. Since i was sick and hospitalized i was givin the opportunity to make that assignment up. I really appreciate out proffessor because he is one of the only ones who is being so nice. Most of the others just think that i was skipping out on them even though i have documentation. I am so glad i took this class because it is helping understand my own family. Not just my life as a child but also the familly that my husband and i are raising right now. I would say that myself and my husband are completely uninfluenced by our upbringing. I came from a home where there was a ton of love but a ton of neglect too. My parents worked so hard to make a nice living for my siblings and i. We always knew they loved us but were not around so much to show it. I remember only one family vacation and i was four years old. My parents always wanted to take us but could never find the time since they owned several of their own buisnesses. We always had what we wanted but i guess i needed a little more supervision. I met my husband when we were just thirteen years old. We are twenty five now and have rarely spent a day apart. We had our first child when we were seventeen and our second followed five years later. He is the best dad in the world. He takes care of everything when i fall short because of my illness. I always have had some really good months where i feel o.k. but eventually i know my body won't hand in there for long. I think it is a good idea for everyone to take a class like family science so learn what their patterns are in their own families and if they need change then they have the tools to do so. My favorite lecture was the one on family strengths. That was an uplifting lecture because i saw a few things that i do right. I also learned that most of time you are a product of your invironment. Not always, sometimes it is possible to change things. Well anyway i look forward to hearing from you guys. Take care.

I feel very very lost

Hi everyone,

Wow i feel so losted in class right now. I just go back after missing three weeks of class. On Monday Feb. 9 i had to get on an airplane and fly to Indianapolis because i was in a chronic pancreatitis attack. I was immediately admitted into the hospial. I was there laying in a hospital bed for fourteen days straight. I was so stressed out the whole time because of school. I knew i was missing so much and was not sure if i could get caught up. Its a working progress i guess. The whole time i was there i wasn't worried about the four surguries in four days i was worried about school. Anyway today was my first day back and i wasn't to impressed with todays lecture. I think Dr. Hollist is an awsome educator and really enjoy listening to him. I suppose we have to learn the boring basics before we can understand what he is teaching before we go back into a more interesting subject. i did however find it very interesting how most of us test our significant others and husbands. After he that slide came up i noticed how much of that i do and i conluded it was a lot. Well hope all of you are well and that school is going good for you. Have a great week.