Jealousy

I really liked reading about this topic a lot because I feel that this is something too many relationships have to deal with. Jealousy I feel is something that comes from two people either one not trusting each other, or two the are insecure with themselves. I have said this many times in my blogs that I feel trust is the basis of relationships. And in order to not think that your significant other is not cheating on you, you need to trust them. Also there are people that have jealousy issues because they have had prior relationships that the other person has cheating on them and they think that its going to happen to them again. I have a friend who was married for 5 years to this women and she cheated on him with her current husband. My friend is now remarried, but he had really bad trust and jealousy issues because he feels as though his wife is going to cheat on him. Every time she talks to co-workers that are guys he gets really jealous and accuses her of cheating. I tell him time and time again that he needs to trust her because she is a wonderful women and if he keeps acting this way that he is going to lose her. After reading this chapter, I might try to suggest the study and tell him to heat up the bedroom and maybe that will help their marriage. I really hope!!!

Impartiality-Favoritism

Impartiality Favoritism is something that I have to deal with all the time with some of my friends. These are the friends that don't want to hurt each others feelings so the act "fake" so they stay neutral. For example I am not getting along with one of my friends that I have had for about 5 years. As we got older we just started to drift away and like different things. Even though we don't talk we still have a lot of mutual friends. One of these friends in particular tries to play us both and act like she supports us both when the other is not present. I find this to be really annoying since I totally understand that she is trying to stay neutral, but she is not being a good friend by saying stuff behind the other persons back. This to me is a very negative way of staying neutral. The people that stay good friends to each other no matter what and don't say anything bad about the other no matter what problems they are going through; those are the good friends!

Maintenance of a Relationship

I really found this part of the chapter really interesting since my boyfriend and I have been talking a lot about it these last few weeks since we are moving in with each other. This basically talks about being positive and sharing tasks are a big part of keeping a relationship alive and strong. Since this is a big step for us we talked about ways we can do things to not make our relationship go bad. For example sharing tasks around the house. We are both going to be working full time jobs so there is no reason why we should not be able to do equal amount of work. Also always keep positive about the issues that surround you. At times things may get tough, but if you keep a positive attitude everything will work out for the better. I really enjoyed this whole chapter because it gave me a new out look on relationships and how to communicate. Since that is the basis of relationships!

Chapter 9

This chapter I found reinforcement perspectives to be really interesting to me. There are a lot of people out there including me who will change their opinion on a person because they don't react in a way that they would have wanted them to. For example I had a friend in high school who thought she was really pretty. Every where she went she felt that every guy wanted her and every guys was looking at her. During a conference one year she had her eyes on this one particular guy the whole weekend we where there. It was not till the last night where she finally tried to pick up on him. Well to her surprise he didn't like her and was actually interested in one of our other friends! Once she got turned down her attitude from he is the cutest guy in the world went to... well he was not that cute any way. That story really reminded me of this term!

Nature of the Relationship.

I found this chapter to be really interesting to me since I have been in a committed relationship for over 3 years now. We did have our difficulties because we went to different colleges that demanded different amount of time from each of us, but some how or another we ended up sticking together and making things work out. There were many times when he had events that took place at his school that I could not attended because I didn't go there, which made me feel left out like he was having fun with out me. As time went on we learned to talk about how we felt and started to make each other an active part of the others social life in school. Once we started to do that things in our relationship started to go really well. I feel that communication is a major part of a relationship. If there is not communication then the relationship is not going to last.

Chapter 8

Chapter 8 was a really interesting chapter for me since it talked about embarrassment. This is something that I can say everyone has experiences at minimum one time in there life. Even though we all experienced this feeling its something that after you experience it, you wish you would have never done so. I know me personally have experienced this MANY times over the spanned of my 23 years of life. The one embarrassing moment that sticks in my head the most is when I was in 6Th grade. I was part of the "big" kids at school and we did not look dumb, in fact everybody looked up to us. So we thought! Well one day I wore a dress to school because my friends and I thought it would be cool to dress alike. During one of our recesses I went to use the bathroom and when I came out the back of my dress got stuck in my underwear! When one of the boys came and told me I was so embarrassed. Everybody was laughing at me and my first reaction was to cry and go home. For the next few days I had to live with them making fun of me because of what happened. I till this day hear about it since I have many of the same friends. As I look back at the situation I should have turned it into a joke as the book suggests. I know almost turn every embarrassing moment into some type of joke. It takes the spot light off of me and the focus on how I managed to change it. Still I don't think that anybody enjoys getting embarrassed, humor or not.

Chapter 7

With in chapter 7 there was a section on secrets that caught my attention. The reason I like this book so much is because it breaks down the terms really good. Terms that I face on an everyday basis, but never knew what they meant. This sections talks about the reasons why people keep secrets, and why some people decide to share secrets. I really was able to understand why my family in particular keeps secrets after looking at the chart on page 193 of the book. That section broke reasons down into three different categories: Taboo, rule violation, and conventional. I found that I fell under the taboo and rule violation section because of financial problems that we have and keep secrets and the fact that I am moving into an apartment with my boyfriend before we get married. My family does not have a problem with that since we are more Americanized, but his parents are not so as much as we hate to we are going to have to keep it a secret so we don't upset a lot of people.
I am one that hardly tells secretes because I fill like they are secretes for a reason. The are people however that do know my deepest darkest secrets, but I am very selective on who I tell those to because you never know if they will spill it to another person tomorrow.

Week 3

As I was reading chapter 6 I found dramaturgical perspective to be a very interesting term. I have always observed how people will act differently around certain groups of people, but never thought of these roles to be slit up as they are in the book. As I read the terms more closely I found myself to have fit in one of those roles through out my life. The most interesting one was the "actor". Even though I try to be myself and not act differently there are times that I feel I have to act more "proper", for example when I am around the elders in my life. Since they are older then me I don't fell its right to use slang words or even use a curse word, like I would with my friends.

I also found audience segregation interesting. I used this a lot in high school with different friends that I hung out with who did not get a long. I use to joke with my friends saying I was doing "traffic control" trying to keep them away so there was not a wreak! This term also made me think about my facebook and myspace and what I put on there, especially now that I am looking for a full time job in the "real world". It never crossed my mind that perspective employers would go on these sites to get a better understanding of who you are as a person.

After reading this section of the book it really made me think of my life in a different way. My mom had always told me growing up that I was so dramatic, if she only knew that we all were actors in our own way!

Week 2 Entery 2

Stereotypes are something that I feel people deal with everyday. I know I am guilty of doing it a lot. My boyfriend goes to SCU and a lot of the students that go there are white and rich. So I always assume that all of the students that go there are rich if they are white. Which is bad for me to do because I never give these people the time of day because I automatically think they are stuck up. On a normal basis I find myself to be a very friendly and down to earth person, which is why I don't understand why I treat them so bad. I think that it may have to do with the fact that I have struggled through College having to work full time and go to school full time. And I see that they don't have to work and they still have nicer things then me. It may be that I am jealous of these group of people and wish that I could be like them.

I honestly hate stereotypes, I feel like it is mean and rude, but yet is something that is really hard not to do. Even if we (I) try to stop doing it.

Chapter 4

As I was reading chapter 4 I found the concepts related to my everyday life more than I realized. Yes I know that as humans we communicate with people on an everyday basis, but to know the way we communicate with one another has concepts and meanings behind them, that was the crazy part. The concept that I found related to me the most was effective listening. I have always been taught going through school that the better you listen to a speaker the more that you get out of what they are saying. For example, I work with elderly people so their level of communication is different from mine. When I first started to work with them I found myself getting really frustrated because I was not understanding them, and they were not understanding me. The communication between us was not happening. I finally realized that maybe I was not taking the time to listen to what they wanted from me. I was jumping to conclusions; therefore getting them upset when I was giving them the wrong service. So I decided to take my time when it came time to help the elder people that come into my work. Yes, it might take me longer to help them, but in the long run we are have better communication between each other and having a much better experience.