Finally Adjusting

After doing what seemed like not very much homework during the past two days, I look ahead in my week and see that I have very little homework left to do this week. I have not had a week yet that has been this relaxed, but I am definately a fan of how efficiently my work has been done this week so far. Past weeks, as I am sure you are all aware of have be more hectic than I have ever had, but for some reason I managed my time very well this week and fell into a free schedule. That is a good feeling for me. I have so little to do I am blogging about how much time I have this week. Watch now that I say something about how I managed my homework load, it is going to become extremely hectic all over again.

Importance of Intercultural Competence in International Projects

When working on an international project or multidisciplinary teams, it is very important to understand the ideologies and beliefs of those you are working for and with. In the eyes of others you do not know what can be construed as ignorance or apathy towards an entire culture’s belief system. This can be a big sign of disrespect and will cause you many problems on the job. Not only does it complicate working conditions, it can also affect the solution. As Dr. Nolan exemplified, if the team had proposed the USAID project without knowing about the practices and values of the FulBe herders. Since Grayzel noted why certain aspects of their society did not rationally makes sense economically. Upon further investigation, Grayzel saw that these discrepancies were due to their independent exercise of beauty, intelligence, and wealth. Another practice of the FulBe herders is emotional satisfaction.

Intercultural Competence

After reading both, diversity consciousness and intercultural competence, I believe that stereotypes and other forms of prejudice are based on categorization of “in-group” and “out-group” members. This definition of individuals being considered in a group or out of a group started to disintegrate society into smaller, more definable, groups. These groups began to be categorized in many ways. This general categorization began to turn into stereotypes and certain types of prejudice. It is possible that many of the different forms of discrimination can be caused from the exclusion of certain members from the group. These different groups can be related to age, gender, race, religion, or any other form of discrimination. But the fact is that when these groups started to become defined, it opened the door for stereotypes and discrimination.

A lovely weekend......not as imagined, but whatevs!

Well, this weekend was supposed to involve spending the day today out working - visiting Lowes and Home Depot stores for my job (I'm a store rep. for Sunburst Shutters "home of the best selling shutter in America!" lol), but guess what?? I lost my flippin' keys on thursday! - Includes a lanyard of BOTH my room key and the key to my motorcycle!

So, as soon as I got out of class yesterday, I commenced investigating, but only to find out that the central lost & found place closes @ 4:30 - POOP! So, I stopped by this morning only to find out that the people with keys to the lost & found won't be back in until Monday! Lol, so......gonna replace some visits with phone calls, and what is most lovely is that I have to head home (to Carmel - north side of Indy) tomorrow, as we're doing a 'family portrait' this Sunday. Soooooo, weekend is turning out a bit differently than planned, but it's all good =)

"prae-judicum"

Interesting - I did not know about the roots of the word 'prejudice.' To quote the paper, the roots in latin mean "before" & "a judgment." I think that I before considered prejudice and stereotypes to be pretty much the same. In reading, it seems that they are very closely related - stereotypes seem to be the dominant images and 'shortcuts' that we take in almost pretending that we know someone before we do because of the 'group or classification' we put them under that we think we know about, and then the 'prejudice' comes in form of opinions or expectations that we have for that group or classification. Both are not fair to others, and tend to place barriers between us as a human family, but both are extremely tempting to use on a daily basis as we interact with others who we may not be ready to invest the time to get to know.

Stereotypes and 'grouping'

Well, one thing that stuck out to me in the reading was the addressing of the issue of 'stereotypes.' This is a subject that has come up in a great many discussions I've had with people, and is even one of the big themes in the 'free zone' that they talked about non-stop during the orientation week. The way I see it is that many times, we'll consider a person more a part of a group or label that is easier to address and deal with than actually spending the time to get to know the individual. It is something that's easy to do, and is seen most everywhere in society - I think that it even is in play when we consider teacher-student relationships, and boss-employee relationships more often than not, as it's kind of a 'shortcut' to interacting with others to get out of actually getting to know them and reserving judgment for when ignorance is gone.

Tests

So I had a math test this week. Not my finest hour, to say the least. I studied very hard on all of the past exams figuring that they are all similar so why would they mix it up all of a sudden, well guess what. They mixed it up. My test form was, at least seemed, very different than the past exam problems that I had mastered. So I was sitting there with about five or six problems that I had not touched before, which was very unsettling. All I can do now is hope that I worked through them correctly. I discussed the test with some people afterwards and they seemed to have the same problem as well. That leads me to hope for a curve. I am disappointed that I was unprepared, even though I spent the time studying. Hopefully, that will have changed by the time Monday’s chemistry test rolls around.

Studying Abroad

Today I visited Mary Schweitzer in order to discuss studying abroad. I have been back and forth between my advisers and the study abroad office without much progress, so upon recommendation from Professor Dare, I contacted her. She was incredibly helpful in describing what I can do, the options I have, and getting the foundation down for beginning my study abroad program match. Before visiting I wrote down about eight or nine specific questions that I wanted to address, because I am very poor at remembering all of my questions. But after forty minutes of talking with her I looked at my questions sheet to get the answers that I needed and I noticed that I had nothing left to ask. She answered all of my questions without me having to have to ask them. I learned all about the general stuff in studying abroad, who to contact to discuss how it will affect my plan of study, and we significantly narrowed the programs that I am considering. I cannot wait to decide on a program and I am even more excited to go on this program. Germany is my first choice because my grandmother always wanted to go back to where she was from and I would like to go for her, it has the technical aspects for Mechanical Engineering that I require, and it has a long history and I feel as though it would give me the best edge on the competition in the job market.

Diversity Conciousness

What I found most interesting about the reading for this week is the unconscious, and almost instinctual, labels and discrimination put on people that are different from us. If you were to ask almost any person if they were racist or discriminatory to any group of people for any reason, that person would more often than not, say no. It is surprising to see how untrue that is in reality. They are not being dishonest; they just are unaware of their actions. The fact is that it is still an issue in today’s world, prominent or not. The section talks about subtle discrimination, such as the opinions that we form about people before we even say a word to them. The problem is that people are unaware of their actions because the opinions are so deeply rooted from repeated exposure in society. Desmond Tutu is an example of this concept when he says, “I found I was saying to myself, ‘I really am bothered that there’s no white man in the cockpit. Can these blacks manage to navigate us out of this horrible experience?’” He continues, “It was all involuntary and spontaneous. I would never have believed that I had in fact been so radically brainwashed. I would have denied it vigorously…but in a crisis something deeper had emerged.” This is exactly what I am referring to; discrimination in all forms has been in society for so long, that it starts to root itself, deep in the unconscious mind. Not many people would consider themselves a racist in any way, shape, or form. But unfortunately, unless these perceptions in society can be resolved, teams, companies, and all other groups containing diverse people will be held back from their true potential.

Civil Structures

One reason that this article is associated with structures is because it discusses medieval castles in a section. It talks about how medieval castles could or could not handle the trebuchet’s power and how they were designed in order to optimize defenses against advancing enemy forces. It also talked about adjustments and upgrades to the castles that needed to be made in order to cope with the continually advancing trebuchets. These upgrades included thicker walls, outer walls that protected the inner main walls, and ramparts. The building and evolving of the trebuchets was also something that engineers were needed for. The bigger these structures got, the more the engineers were needed. The slides built on the back of them are a good example of this. The canvas pouch would either drag along the ground and decrease range or they would dig a trench for it. But if the trebuchet would need to be moved then a new trench would need to be dug. But the engineers found a way to decrease the friction of the dragging pouch, and increase efficiency by creating a slide for the pouch to rest and slide in.

Fall Break

For fall break, I am going back home for the first time since I first got here. I have so much to do in so little time. I have to go see all of my friends and family. I cannot wait to see everyone and talk to them about Purdue. It has been so long since I have seen them. But what I did not expect is how much I missed my pets; I missed my animals almost more than my friends and family. Not really, but it was strange to come home after being gone for so long. My weekend is completely packed, and I still have to have to find time to get to the doctor and get stuff for my dorm. My brother came home the weekend before me to visit everyone. If I had not known that before I would have when I got home. He left a gigantic mess, it is unbelievable how messy one person can be, he is like a tornado.

Honestly, what's your general impression about Asians?

Well, this question is one that I have re-evaluated quite a few times over the years. For this response, I am going to concentrate on those who I have come into contact with of Chinese origin, as this was the people included in the reading.

To be honest, reading the parts of the assigned reading on Confucianism was music to my ears. It is the root of most of the contact I've had with people of direct Chinese descent. Particularly with much of the time I spent abroad in areas with lots of immigrants, I was absolutely blown away by the respect, behavior, resourceful-ness, and kindly, positive nature of immigrants from China. Many immigrants from other countries had quite a bit of trouble transitioning to living in a different setting, and learning how to contribute to a society besides that of their place of birth. But, so many of the Chinese people that I came into contact with were transitioning beautifully, and I think that a huge part of this is the foundation that Confucianism sets for the lives of these people. No matter what happens, or how difficult life may be, they are always positively contributing to their environment, and not just for personal gain, but for the good of 'the whole' - which tended to include most everyone they came into contact with.