speak when you are angry, and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.

Let's see if I can remember what I'm supposed to write about.

insights
The first thing I learned was that maybe there is something behind this whole biological connection to communication differences between the sexes after all... But I'll have to read more before I'll start accepting the whole explanation about the connection between the hemispheres and everything. So while I maintain my skepticism, I will concede that there are many things that I do not know.

We spoke of balance points today. I have a couple of little diagrams drawn, but can't really make much sense of them. There is this sick cycle between mothers and daughters and sons-in-law. This comes as a result of venting. Now I remember. People vent (men and women, though women are more notorious for it, whereas men want to fix everything). This is okay, because everyone needs to let off steam once in a while because things build up and if you're not careful you'll have an avalance of rage that has built up and it will spill forth and create a catastrophe of Biblical proportions, making people flee for their lives (which is uncomfortable in heels) and car alarms go off and small children cry. In short, nobody wants that to happen. So in order to deter such an event, people vent. Again, this is okay, as long as you vent responsibly. This is done though something called "I-Statements." This is very suitable here, as it goes along with such things as I-Teams, I-Cards, and other such I-Stuff that can be found around campus. They consist of four simple categories of statements:

1: Observation ("When I smelled that aerosol perfume you were spraying in the room this morning...")
2: Interpretation ("...I thought I was going to die from a severe chemical allergy provoking an adverse immune response.")
3: Feeling ("I felt that you were disregarding my life... and it hurt!!")
4: Outcome ("So next time, please do that on the balcony outside so you'll kill the wildlife instead of me, the roomate that you undoubtedly love dearly." )

See?! I bet you're feeling better already!!

When they tried to indoctrinate us with these back in elementary school, however, they didn't work at all. The self-righteous little punks who employed these at the prompting of the Duty Teachers on the playground served only to get on everyone elses' nerves. Within a couple weeks, the level of conflict during recess had compounded exponentially; everywhere the eye could see were exchanges as follows:

Disgruntled Child #1: "When YOU STOLE the wallball from me, I felt ANGRY that you were being so STUPID, so I think you should GIVE IT BACK!"
Disgruntled Child #2: "Oh yeah, well when YOU CUT IN LINE during teatherball yesterday I almost cried because you were being RUDE so I think that you should go STAND AT THE WALL UNTIL YOU DIE!"
And the Duty Teacher would stand there and shake her head.

They quit teaching us about those after that.

But I think that, aside from a certain degree of manipulativeness inherent in this kind of thing if one employs it unwisely (portraying oneself as victimized or whatever), these can be effective. Since you're (hopefully) assuming a certain degree of responsibility, the other person doesn't feel so much that they're being attacked. Also, since it takes so long to say it (especially if you're trying to remember the components/order), you have time to step back and think about what it is you're afriad of, as well (assuming you are angry). This way, you're using the proactive model instead of a reactive one, and you're at more of a level of active listening, and hopefully can therefore achieve some degree of understanding before making assumptions or anything.

Until Wednesday, buen viaje.