One Concept

Communication is one of the most important part of life through which we express our feelings to others. Before taking this class I thought there is only one type of communication that is verbal, but after this semester I understood the importance of non-verbal communication skills. Non-verbal communication includes gestures, behavior, facial expression, appearance, and body language. In fact, all of us do the non-verbal communication in our day-to-day life. It was interesting to know that this type of communication is continuous and is perceived to be more believable (Woods p 120). This was a great class that taught me to be the non-verbal communication skills and how to respond to those non-verbal actions. Also, from my experience and as read in the textbook it is true that the non-verbal communication can often establish new relations. For example, whenever a guy sees a girl the first thing before they say hello to each other is the non-verbal interaction. It can be either appearance, eye contact or a handshake. Non-verbal communication is equally important as verbal communication.

Favorite Thing About Class

The best thing I liked about this class was that we were learning the new communication skills every day. The blogging was the best part as there was a feeling that as if we were commenting on our friend's blog. But including all this learning the styles of loving was my favorite thing about class. I came across different types of relationships that a person goes throughout his or her life and learned three basic things to keep a healthy relationship. I always thought that commitment was most important in a healthy relationship but after reading the chapter I came across a fact that trust and honesty with each other are equally important as commitment. Professor Perez was an approachable almost every time I needed to ask any question or needed help, she replied to my e-mail within one day. This class was fun and engaging class in a sense of communicating and learning.

what I learned

This class is a great resource for a person like me to enhance the communication skills and with such a great professor Perez this class made more sense. She was always available for questions, either through email or online on yahoo. I personally liked how the textbook described styles of loving and non verbal communications aspects. I knew trust was important, as well as honesty. But from book I learnt that we should be honest to our partners about what we feel about them too. For example, if we think our partner looks bad in blue jeans, we should let her know honestly. Although she likes blue but if did not suit her we should express our opinions honestly. Another aspect of this class about blogging the discussions and commenting on random people's wall were also great. This way of using blogging I was able to make few online friends. Although, I never meet them but they still are important part of my life through these blogs.

Equity and Enhancing Intimacy

The topic that I found interesting in this week’s reading was that equity must be maintained in Family relationships and daily choices should be made in a way such that intimacy is increased between the family members. First of all the equity should be maintained in a way such that all the members should have equal treatment, benefits should be equal in family and nobody should have greater benefit than one another. Secondly, in order for intimacy to prevail in the family the choices made within the family should be considered in a way that nobody is hurt. For example, the partners that want to sustain the intimacy in their life and in relationship always think about dealing with conflicts. They tend to listen to each other and stay away from choices that can destroy their future life. In a family all members should stay in touch with each other’s concerns and dreams.

Marriage Trend Prediction

I would predict that the changes in marriage will depend upon the cultural value and beliefs. It is based on the person who is getting married, whether to follow the traditional ways to get married or follow another belief. For example, in western countries most of the young people can just live together without getting married ever in life. But on the other hand, in most of the Asian communities especially in Indian community, the guy or girl are not allowed to live together until they are married. But for western countries I would predict that marriage ritual will fade away in next 50 years, compared to Asian communities I would think that as the trends are changing, so the future generations will be able to live together and get married later on. But as I said before the cultural values and beliefs that parents will tell their children will make a huge impact on how their generation will respond to the marriage rituals.

Family Definition

I would define family as a group of blood related people that care about each other's feelings by being honest and helpful. To me my family members mean a lot because they are always present for me whenever I need their support. Whenever I do something wrong they will support me and tell me to learn from my mistakes. For example, when I got my first speeding citation my parents were not angry at me, rather they asked me the reason I was speeding and told me not to speed because they cannot afford to lose me in an accident, as I am the only son in my family. I felt their love because they did not care about the car but they cared about my life and this was the reason they were upset because I could have been into an accident while I was speeding. Show respect and consideration is part of my family along with making choices to enhance intimacy, and developing equality in family. We do not fight over small stuff rather trust each other and respect each other's feelings.

Passion

All of us have been in a situation where we like someone and eventually start loving them. The love keeps on increasing due to the passion that the partners have for each other. For example, if a guy loves a girl with passion, then whenever the girl will hug him or kiss him, he will fell the same way he felt the first time with that girl. The passion is defined as an uncontrollable emotion. All the passionate relationships have passion for sexual feelings, spiritual feelings, exceptional emotion and intellectual excitement. There is another intense feeling of commitment but passion is one of these most important constituents that help relationships build stronger and deeper. Passion is not in our own will power, but if passion prevails in a relationship then is has a strong impact in making relationships stronger. Love is not only a key factor in making relations successful but passion together with commitment helps a relationship to last longer.

Online vs. Face-to-face Relations

In today's technological environment, children are getting used to computers on an early stage. It is very common to see children under the age of 18 having their profiles on social networks like face-book, my-space and many more. These children use false profile pictures to be more attractive and sometimes lie about their country of residence. Therefore, online relationships can be dangerous. I personally think it is unethical for a person to misrepresent their identity, appearance and sexual orientation.  One reason is that, in a relationship trust is the key factor which keeps the relationship strong. When a person misrepresents their identity they are lying to others, this can lead to negative affects in future of that relationship. Another reason is that deception is more likely to occur in online relationships rather than face-to-face relationship. When we meet a person face-to-face, we know about their appearance, sexual orientation and factors that can lead us to trust them. But in online relationships we just have to trust a person through their profile, which can be false. In face-to-face relationships, a person can lie but we he or she cannot lie about their identity, physical appearance and sexual orientation compared to online relations. Therefore, there is a risk of false identity in online dating and this is the reason deception is more likely to occur in online relationships as compared to the face-to-face relations.

Love or Commitment

All of us have different experiences and different opinions on relationships. I have relations that require commitment and love, but at some instances in my life I was exposed to a situation where there was no love but commitment was present. It was me and my maternal grandfather; we lost love in our relationship about three years ago. But a commitment is there that I have to take care of him because my mom asked me to. He is an angry person, with a lot of pride and it is annoying to me all the time. He always accused me of an unsuccessful person and it always got me angry. We had fights and lost love in our relationship. On the other hand, my sister and I have a love relationship but there is no commitment. We do whatever we wish to do and none of us stop each other. Both relationships have different impact in life; love is required for all relationships to go smoothly whereas commitment is merely an option. Personally I would conclude that as long as the love prevails in a relationship it is strong, as love fades the value of relationship always fades away.

Challenges to Friendship

As discussed in the chapter there are many challenges and tensions between friends that can affect friendship. Some of them are internal like misunderstandings and other are external like interests as well as geographic distance. The website is a great source to find some inspirational poems and quotes for friends. The advice forum was a great source to ask questions in how to deal with a friend of different sex. I came across an advice forum where boy wants to be only a friend with a girl so he can focus on studies and he needed help to control his sexual feelings. The advice was similar to the book that he should think that if he wants to be romantically involved with that girl or just be friends with her and carry on the friendship for a long time. Although it is hard to control feelings for person of opposite sex but it is possible. I have a female friend and we have known each other for six years, I care about her and have feelings but I don't have any sexual feelings for her because she is only my friend and trusts me. I respect her trust and since last six years we have hung out with each other almost every other day and never had any sexual contact. It depends on the person about what type of friendship they prefer.

Support

In this week's reading I found support to be really important in friend circle. It is one of many ways to show our friends that we care about them. For example, my best friend told me that he did not do well on his midterm and was upset about it. I told him that he tried his best and he can do better than that. I advised him to concentrate more hours on studies rather than playing basketball. In my communication I showed my friend that I care about his life situations and his feelings. I supported him by telling him that he can do better, and giving him an advice that he should concentrate more on studies. The level of friendship and trust increases whenever we show support or receive support. I also agree with the author that men tend to show support thorough indirect communication. For example, when men support their friends or anyone we all tend to clasp our shoulder or punch on the arm to show the support. I personally tend not to sustain in the emotional talk and show support by advising or I will provide a diversion so that I can take my friend's mind off the problem.

Best friend

My best friend lives few blocks away from my house. I was new to United States in my junior year of high school. I met my friend and we started hanging out, he helped in my homework, made me new friends. As time passed by we started trusting each other, I would tell him about my family and my origins and he would share about his family and business. One day in senior year he was sad because he was going to graduate but I could not figure out the reason for his sadness. Just like other students I was happy and expected him to be happy. I asked him the reason, first he refused but then he told me that he is graduating but he is in doubt if he would pass his math class or not. I asked him what's wrong because he was a good student just like me with all good grades. He told me that he cuts his class to be with his girlfriend. I advised him to leave her girlfriend because neither she was good at school nor she loved him. He got little angry with me and did not talk for two months, but during middle of second semester of senior year he randomly showed up to my house and just said "You were right". I did not know what was he talking about but then he told me that he caught her girlfriend cheating and broke-up with her. Now it's being almost 4 years we have been friends and he trusts me consider me as his brother. Although, we don't go to same school but whenever I need help and call him, he is always there for me as a brother. He shares everything with me and I do that too. It creates a stronger bond between him and me and our trust grows stronger. As mentioned in the book our friend ship is based on trust, acceptance and willingness. We invested time to correct our mistakes, did not give up, and accepted each other's ideas.

Defensive interaction

After reading the Gibb's Defensiveness-producing communication behaviors, I figured out that like most of us, I am also impatient and sometimes it is hard to make decisions. It is not because I am not grown up or anything related to that, but rather lack of confidence. I tend to take everything personally and act defensive. For example, last week I was with my friends and we were talking about how cultural values are important. One of my friends, Arshpreet, is born and raised in America but his ethnicity is Asian Indian. He follows his religion which is the reason he has grown his beard and hair, he never had a haircut. I am Indian, and I respect his decision of following his culture because I know that reason. But last week my white friend John was joking and asked Arshpreet to get a haircut. I took that defensively and asked me why is Arshpreet's beard and religious culture affecting him that he is suggesting him to have a haircut. I was mad at him, but after some time we argued and he apologized and told me he was joking. We are still good friends but it is my habit to take everything defensively. Out of Gibb's six defensive categories I think my personal example follows control/problem oriented, neutrality/empathy, and certainty/provisionalism. It is because I talked on behalf of my friend, supported him and allowed John to practice his beliefs and not to say anything about others cultural or religious values.

Confirming Disagreement

This chapter is a great about relating personal life to the others view. I feel uncomfortable while confirming with my friends about my disagreement to their viewpoints. I do not want to hurt them by saying that I disagree with their views. Instead of confirming I would either argue with my friends or tell them why I disagree. But after reading chapter eight I learnt that I should rather first respect their point of view (recognition), confirm with them my disagreement (acknowledgement) and then I should argue about it (endorsement). The difference between confirmation and endorsement is that in confirmation we confirm others that we understand their views and respect their ideas, but endorsement means it is a formal approval that we agree with the ideas. We might not confirm our disagreement in endorsement but we just approve the other persons ideas. On the other hand in confirmation we not only confirm but endorse also, or in other words we validate the others idea.

Relationship is about Trust

Most of us have been in relationships, some still are, some are planning, some are thinking, and some have issues in their relationship. The most satisfactory part in a personal relationship is trust. I agree with the author that it involves believing in your partner's reliability. The meaning of reliability is that he or she will do everything as promised. Also, the most important part that was pointed out by the author was that trust does not just come automatically in relationships, because it is earned over time. We talk with our partner about our everyday life, in other words we share our feelings because we want to trust that person. We expect them to be caring about our feelings and as a result we share feelings with them. I personally can say that trust is the basic foundation for a relationship, without trust nor can a relationship work neither it is a good idea to try working it out. Because if we cannot trust a person then there is no point of a relationship as we cannot share anything between each other, cannot keep promises, and most importantly cannot share truth. Therefore, it is my advice to my friends and my blog reader to never even bother to try a relationship with someone whom you cannot trust.

Fallacies in my Communication

I thought my communication skills were very good, until I read this week's reading and came across the fallacies. In my intrapersonal communication, I do a lot of those fallacies but the one that is most common in my communication is my response to other people when they communicate emotions with me. For example, about a week ago in my philosophy class midterm my friend was telling me that he could not study because of his family party at his house. I was reviewing for midterm when he told me his problem but rather than consoling him, I told him. "it is okay, you will do fine". I thought I did not say anything wrong to him, but he took it offensively. He thought I did not care about his life or his feelings, but on the other hand I was focused on my review for midterm and just randomly answered him. I felt bad and apologize to him, and today after reading this chapter I realized that I should response sensitively to others, when they communicate with me through their emotions.

Choose whether and how to express?

Emotions are a way of representing ourselves to others around us. A person can immediately understand the feeling of a person through emotions. For example, when we see a person crying we can immediately understand that the person that is crying is hurt or is in pain. He or she can be sad about earning a bad score in their mid-term, but our reaction is that we are able to understand their feelings. Also, emotions can sometimes back fire also. Like in the instance of recent scandal in San Diego County, a married chief sheriff was caught dating another lower level officer. That lower level officer did not knew that chief sheriff was married, but one day she saw chief with his wife and talked to chief in an arrogant way. She expressed her emotions, but by uploading her and chief supervisors picture on face-book. Although, that officer got the picture at the time they were dating but the emotion of betrayal lead the lower level positioned officer to petition against chief justice. Overall, I would say that emotions are very strong feelings in today's life and they are used for expressing the feelings.

Emotions

After reading, I had one question in my mind, do emotions control our body and mind or is it the mind that controls our body and the emotions? Science tells us that our body is controlled by the nervous system in our brain but what about our emotions. Who controls our emotions when we are happy or when we cry? Emotion by Webster dictionary is defined as a state of excitement, a feeling, and a conscious mental reaction directed toward a specific object and accompanied by physiological behavior. When I am in the examination hall and ready to take my exam most of the time my hands will be shaking and I will be sweating. I know I am ready but still I sweat, that is not controlled by my brain. I personally think the emotions are involuntary act that are not controlled by our brain. Rather, they are controlled by the emotions we going through according the place where we at.

International Listening Association

The document was interesting to read because I had no idea that a human brain processes listening three times faster than it processes reading. It was also the truth that most of the high schools do not require any speech training or any kind of speech class. I agree that there should be a class about speech which should be mandatory in the high schools for graduation requirement. I agree because speech is very important in today's life where there is competition present in finding any kind of job. I agree with the speaker that listening is useful because when we listen we start thinking that if that information we listening is worth or not? We start thinking if there is anything we can take n account that can change our lives. I don't know if most of us do it but at least, I agree because I do this and it helps. IN college we listen to lectures, instead of taking notes if we listen more and note down less points, the important ones, only listening to lectures can get us have good grades. The bad listener are always those who say communication is bad because I think it is a great and important aspect of life.

Pseudo Listening

Pseudo listening is the common listening part of my communication. I am a pseudo listener because when I am in class or with friends, most of the time I will be listening to them but my mind is set at something else. For example, sometimes I will be in class but my mind will be set to think about the plans for the evening. I will be thinking about homework and prioritizing which homework to do first. Every time I do this I tend to lack in the class I am sitting in. Therefore, I am trying to make a plan to overcome this situation. I am going to buy a daily planner and plan everything out in the daily planner. Instead of me thinking about my plans and homework in class, I would note them down in the diary as soon as they hit my mind. In this way, I will be able to concentrate in class and be able to focus on my other homework and plans also.

Mindful Listening

This chapter in a whole explains the importance of listening in our lives. The starting quote between mother Teresa and an interviewer explains that even so many decades ago listening was an important part of people at that time. The topic that I liked was that when we listen there are always internal obstacles that distract us and I totally agree with the author. For example, it happens to me and I am pretty positive it might be happening to a lot of other people that when we listen, we start thinking about something else. We might be thinking of class homework, the family re-union in the evening, friend's birthday party or a fraternity volunteer. It just fascinates me that how mind can be in class and think about random topics. Sometimes, I fall behind in class because of the distractions and as a result I have to go professor's office hours. It is fun to think but sometimes I think we need to control our mind processing according to the location we are present at.

Hate Speech

Hated speech is basically an incitement to hatred primarily against a group of persons defined in terms of race,   ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and the like. Hate speech can be any form of expression regarded as offensive to racial, ethnic and religious groups and other discrete minorities or to women. It can be taken off the web by administration if rules and regulations are applied on the content being published on web. But as the web is so big not only rules but ethics will be more helpful. I think we all need to speak out against expressions of intolerance and hatred whenever they occur.  We need to educate people, especially young people, so that they do not develop intolerance or hatred toward any group. It should be censored because even such things as computer games, cartoons and so on, if they contain offensive remarks against other groups, may lead hot only to conflicts within the country, but to international ones. For example, such computer games as “Intervention into Iran” and Danish cartoons of the Muhammad led to a new wave of terrorism in Europe. So, if we make hate speech a crime, we can bring tolerance to society. If we avoid such conflicts, we will improve social welfare. No it would not violate our freedom of speech right. WE can control it by creating awareness of respect and discouraging hate speech.

Metaphors

If we ask anyone about what is American society? The first thing that come in a persons mind is multicultural society. I agree with it because most of the people in America are immigrants and they come here for a better future. I personally think Jesse Jackson's metaphor of united state as a family quilt is a great metaphor to express the diversity of cultures in the society. It is like a quilt because quilt considers if many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes and all of them are together with a common thread. In that same manner all of the cultures and communities count to make America a great country.The metaphor I would propose for american society is that it is like a "salad bowl". Like salad bowl has lettuce, cheese, croutons, onion, tomatoes and many more sauces and we love to eat it, in the same manner American society is mixed with multicultural people. All are from different race and cultural with different beliefs and just like we love salad bowl because it has so many ingredients, people from other countries love America because we are such a diverse country.  Most of us are here because we love freedom and Unites States is best country to enjoy freedom. Therefore, all citizens should get along because we all are Americans. All of us are here because want to enjoy freedom, not to be sad or get punished for having different cultural belief.

Language can Degrade others

Most of us think that language is just for communication but it can sometimes degrade others. Like in the text author gave example of children taunt each other by name-calling. That is one of the forms that degrade language. We all know that language is way more powerful than the real life fist fights. This is the reason someone proudly said, “Pen is mightier than the sword”. It is because only few can see the fist fight but once the article is posted millions of people can access it. Language is the most important and common way of communication between human-beings. But some people don’t appreciate it. My best friend’s father is a stroke patient and is suffering from aphasia. A person suffering from aphasia can understand others but cannot express himself through speech or written form. I understood the importance of language through my friend’s father because every time he needs something, instead of speech he has to explain what he needs through gestures and sometimes my friend is able to understand it right away and sometimes it takes him hours to figure out what his father wanted. Therefore, we all should appreciate language and use it in a better way so society as a whole can be a better living place.

Generation gap

I talked to mygrandparents and my parents. For my grandfather, he was born in south Asia allof the students around the age of 20, boys and girls had separate schools.There was no co-education system at the time of 1960's. Also, in that societygirls were considered inferior compared to boys. The marriages were arranged byparents and they did not have any right to choose their own partner. Parentswould also not like to give higher education to the girls rather they wouldlike them to get married and go to in-laws home. On the other hand,when my dad was twenty in about 1980's (also in south Asia),co-ed high schools were introduced in the society. He personally went to theco-ed high school in India. Colleges were also co-ed but most of the elderlypeople wanted their sons to go to Men College and girls to Women College. Also,love marriages were happening at that time, older generation did not appreciatethat but they were happening at that time in South Asia. Compared this to mygeneration we have co-education since kindergarden. Every parent wants toeducate their children no matter if that is a boy or a girl. Also, as I am in Americastudents in 20’s have freedom of marriage and can marry anyone they think isgood partner for them.

Is race important?

Race is a way of classifying humans on the basis of their origins. But does it really matter in 21^st century where we have multi-cultural society? There is no right or wrong answer. I personally think that race is not a way to classify a personal identity because we have a 25% African-American, 25% white, 25% Hispanic mixed with 25% Vietnamese. How can this person describe himself or herself as part of one origin? There is no way, because Freedom is a right in America. People come here to enjoy freedom and have fun. If a Chinese boy person fell in love with a African-American girl nobody can say it is wrong because everyone is free. Therefore, I don’t think so Census Bureau should allow people to check multiple races to define themselves. Because in America most of immigrants come for better future and they look for an educated partner. I don’t care about race and I think most of my classmates will agree with me too because we all are future of United States. 

sexual orientation

One of the important aspects of identity is sexual orientation. Whenever we fill any job application we are required to disclose our sex as either male or female. This fascinates me that sometimes sex orientation can make a great difference in making a decision of hiring a person. People's beliefs about sexual orientation vary and are based on their religious, cultural, and family values. While some families already discuss this topic, for others the topic may be difficult. When talking about sexual orientation, many different terms may be used. Heterosexual (or straight) refers to a person who is attracted to and falls in love with someone of the other gender. Homosexual (or gay man or lesbian woman) refers to a person who is attracted to and falls in love with someone of the same gender. Bisexual refers to a person who is attracted to and falls in love with someone of either gender. My uncle owns a liquor store and whenever he thinks about hiring someone the first part he looks at is the sex. I asked him why? He said because men are stronger than women. I understand that, maybe men are stronger but that doesn’t mean women are weak. We see women in wrestling and many other games that require a lot of strength. I almost argued for one hour with my uncle on this topic that he is sexist.

What is next

I was just wandering that we create a blog take the introduction quiz email the professor. Is that it for this weeks assignment?? any help will be appreciated

thank you :)

Introduction

Hello Everyone, my name is Jaskirat Singh but I go with Jazz as my nickname. I am a junior in engineering major at San Jose State University. I look forward to make new friends through this class.