"so what you've been saying is the equivalent of executing someone before their trial." "is that bad?"

Now that I know nearly everyone's name (in the class, that is... not on campus; I think I'll need another few days/weeks/semesters/lifetimes before that happens), we're moving along to learning all kinds of communicate-y things. It's rather pleasant. Or however that is spelled.

We've learned about "Column A" and "Column B," which all of us has. They are, in essence, somewhat like the song "What I Say and What I Mean" by the Like. I haven't actually heard this song all the way though, as I don't much care for that particular group, but I remember the title nonetheless.

Bleah. My writing voice is dreadful today. I'm not sure what I've picked it up from (it changes depending on what I've been reading lately), but I do hope it changes soon.

Insights scattered throughout
+ I never before made the connection between fear and anger. Generally I took it to be the fact that I get scared when someone is mad at me, because rarely does one associate being the recipient of one's wrath to be an enjoyable experience. But I never associated anger and fear being essentially the same, and especially having that component of love in there (well, it's one thing when you're five and prone to running at random through parking lots and your mom gets mad at you because she loves you and would have the fear that you could get smooshed, and another to... Okay, forgot where I was going with that. Never mind. I'm all analogied out.)

General Application
+ The illustration of fear as being negative faith was interesting to me, too. It makes me think of when Nephi and co. need to get the plates from Laban and so Laman and Lemuel. L&L are beating up Nephi because they have poor coping skills, so and angel comes and tells them to knock it off, and right after he leaves, L&L are freaking out (again) because Laban "can command fifty, yea, even he can slay fifty; then why not us?" Maybe if they'd bothered to go about getting testimonies of their own, they'd figure out that since God commanded them to get the plates, and Nephi has given his scripture mastery spiel (1 Nephi 3:7), that maybe, just maybe, God could prove to be more mighty than Laban. So negative faith, fear, there you go.
+ Another thing I found to be true once I thought about it was the fact that, ususally, we are listening to others using our own agenda as a criteria for what we're listening to/for. When we were shown the five steps of listening, I was rather taken aback to realize that a. I probably spend a lot of my time in the Pretend Listening level (as in a LOT a lot of the time) and b. that's a very low place to be.

Personal Application
+ I'd already had some understanding of the Personal Bank Account concept, but now I'm seeing how it might be applying in my life. There was one incident last semester where this was manifest very strongly, and both myself and the person who kept making withdrawls wound up feeling like (insert unpleasant noun/simile here). So now when I meet people I might think about that a little more. But at the same time I'm so ADHD that I really do wonder about whether or not I really do that (open an account, even a temporary one, for everyone I meet... I often forget people are there).
+ And I am left wondering about the prejudices we have against other people being as a result of their resemplance to ourselves? Because I don't know, but I admittedly have a certain degree of prejudice against people who talk on their cell phones all the time and so while that certainly makes a poor first impression on me, I don't think it's due to any traits that I myself have, as I'm not really fond of talking, particularly on the phone, and especially in public. But then again, people tell me I'm weird, so what can I say?
+ Also, I'm not sure I'm buying into the whole biological-argument as far as communication is based. I'll have to look into it. Styles of communication, even between genders, vary from culture to culture, don't they? So is everyone's biology different? Does testosterone seriously cause severage into the corpus callosum (or whatever, I'm not sure I fully understood what was being said). I'm thinking it's more culturally based (things build up with women because they don't express it at first because they don't want to sound like they're nagging, or they don't want confrontation with whoever they're mad at, etc. etc. I have no idea how men think, so I can't say anything for that category...) Whatever the case is, I'm a psychology major. I'm being trained to be skeptical, especially when people say "studies show" or "statistically" or "based on research..."

Teach
+ I called home and talked to my dad about the anger/fear thing. He's got his own business, and sometimes people get mad. This could be because they're all scared of losing money, because dad wants to be able to support the family, and where I live there are a lot of Donald Trump type people who like money. At least that's my perception anyway. I'm sure they want to support their families as well.

I think that is enough said for today.