Second to Last Take Away

I find that I take a lot of notes during class. I have a horrible memory and by the time I get home, I have forgotten what I wanted to write in my take away. I took 6 ½ pages of notes today. I know I look down at my notebook to take notes, and I hope no one thinks I being rude or not paying attention to what anyone is saying. That being said, I noticed that there were a lot of people not paying attention to the presentations today. I find it rude that people would rather talk to each other, play on their phones, read a book, or work on homework while others were presenting their fear. I wonder why some seem to think it is not important to listen to their peers when they are presenting a project. I worry about this generation at times.

As For Today’s Fears

“If I’m not in total control, I lose my shit.”

How awesome was that one liner? I have been accused to be a control freak with OCD. I like things to be done correctly the first time and I don’t trust others to do it right. That being said, I do enjoy being surprised. As for Tory’s presentation, I loved the tornado she made. I was impressed that she had her family complete one also. To seal the things they can’t control within the tornado seemed to be a very therapeutic motion. Good on you, Victoria.

Freedom

I made a comment about the projection of fears tinting how we think others think about us and I stand by that comment. We all seem to think that other people judge us and find us lacking. But we have to remember that EVERYONE has insecurities and, most of the time, don’t think twice about us. It also can be explained by Daniel’s presentation last week, the way others react to us often is more about their own fears than about us.

Self-Discovery

Kennedy spoke about her self-discovery. I had to think about this a bit. I’m going to draw from my science background for this one. In any science field, when one makes a new discovery, the first thing we do is label it. What are we going to call it? What categories does it fit in? Is it plant, animal, mineral? Is it warm blooded or cold blooded? Is it a land, air, or sea creature? And the categorizing continues. These are all labels we assign to this new thing.

The same is done when we meet someone for the first time, we categorize them. Is this person a male or female? Tall or short? Nice or grumpy? Like me or not like me? Outgoing or shy? And the labeling continues until we have an understanding of who this new person is. If we only allow others to know the answer to one question, that is the only label we get. The more we allow others to know about us, the more complete the categorization process, the clearer picture we get about how that person fits in our lives.

On the flip side, because we fear the judgement and the potential pain this new person will inflict in our lives, we limit the amount of information we give them. We are judging them either worthy or unworthy of our true selves.  We make snap decisions about if someone is worthy of categorizing us based on first impressions. A lot of time we don’t take into account what is going on in their lives. We might think, “They are a jerk, I don’t want to give him/her a chance to know me and judge me.” But we don’t take into account that there might have been an event in their lives that put them in a retrospective mood that day. They might have been yelled at by a customer or co-worker for something that wasn’t their fault and are needing to step back to protect themselves from more hurt. Snap judgements….

Putting Forth the Effort

I was impressed by Kyle’s (with a C) effort. I think he truly understood the project and got a lot out of it. I made quite a few notes from his presentation. I liked that he recognized the first day that he knew his isolation from family and friends was only temporary so it didn’t feel real. That didn’t mean he didn’t have profound revelations during his project. He questioned if being with people defined who he was or if it was a result of who he was. He recognized that he could deal with sadness but not with frustration. He said he had higher anxiety about everyday things because he wasn’t able to share them with others. He said sometimes he was afraid because he felt like he should be afraid. He said he used a lot of escapes to make things less important. He said that no matter who he’s with or what he’s doing, there is always a reason to continue. He said light surrounds you even when you are trapped.

He said a lot of great things.

Finally Notes

When Jacob asked if we knew who he was and what he did, I realized it never thought about researching who was teaching me. Why haven’t I done this? I’m trusting my professors to teach me what I need to know to be a successful member of society. I should have been researching my professors long before now.