What I learned

At the beginning of class my goals were to understand communication between different kinds of people and to get an A in the class. Even though I haven't gotten an A in the class I have learned alot in how to communicate with different kinds of people. I learned many different "techniques" in communication in race, gender, and even people with different kinds of disabilities. I loved having this class because I learned things that would help me with things in life and work. This class was fun with the snacks and and all the different kinds of activities that we all participated in. I can't wait to come back next year and be able to use my communication skills when I go to Europe and with the new students of next year.

Freedom Writers

I've never seen the freedom writers before so when I watched it for the first time in class the other day I really thought that it was interesting and it brought up a different perspective for me. I really have never been apart of such a life like that so I wouldn't know what it feels like. I feel like this movie helped me see what it's like in some places of the country. I think the movie did a really showed what it's like in all aspects of the spectrum. Like the movie really displayed what it would be like in some places of the country. Second I think the movie did a really good job in showing that we as people should not fight amongst ourselves and that all people should really just appreciate everyones personal voice. I also think the movie covered the diversity topic pretty well. America is the melting pot! and us as people should understand that we all are Americans. It showed that learning english isn't everything and that there is a bigger picture then to just learn about the boring stuff.

week 14

Sadly I couldn't attend class this last week. We were all on the road playing games and luckily we won all of the games that I missed class for. So even though I wasn't able to learn about anything that we learned in class I still learned a lot from events that happened throughout the week. A couple days ago a huge story came out about the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. Stories came out that had given proof of the owner expressing his racial thoughts to a women. He said things along the lines of, "I don't want you promoting you being with Magic Johnson." Also mentioning later in the conversation that he would prefer that she didn't bring black people to his games. This incident is obviously huge news over the nation. I particularly am interested in it because I happen to be a huge Clippers fan. Upon hearing of the news I was disgusted to realize that such a horrible person could be the owner of this team. I would hate to be an African American and be a fan of the Los Angeles Clippers. I mean if you're an African American fan of the Clippers you can't even attend a game without feeling uncomfortable because the owner doesn't even want you there. I'm especially surprised that the players didn't boycott the game. Personally if my coach was so racist I wouldn't be playing for him. No matter what color of skin I was. It's hard to see something so disturbing happening in this day in age. Where we all thought we were past the racist and horrible times of our past. I hope that the NBA can solve this situation and that we can all enjoy this game together as lovers of this great sport.

week 13

Tuesday: At the start of class we started talking about the weirdest food that we have ever eaten and when I got thinking about it I haven't really ventured much when it comes to trying odd and unique foods. I guess if I ever go to Europe or anywhere beside North America I'll be able to experience many more types of food throughout the world. Next in class we got started on a video. I thought the video was kind of disturbing at the beginning when it started just cause it listed cats and dogs and humans! I thought the way he described the level 4 is perfect. I think it's funny that he says that most americans are that way because I always feel like that I'm more picky than everyone else. And even though I'm a level four I feel like all the foods that are listed in level five are gross! A lot of the time they were talking about how'd they'd eat brain! Could you imagine eating something that used to be somethings brain? In my mind it's just so weird to me that anyone would ever like any food above level 4. But when you really think about it the parts are from the same exact animal, and I don't even know how good it tastes. But when it comes to a person like me thinking about eating certain parts of the body I just can't do it.
On Thursday I was assigned to bring a snack and an article. When I was thinking of a snack to bring I thought of the snack I loved most while I was younger. And of course my favorite snack was a PB&J. So I decided to do my snack on peanut butter since I just so happen to have nutter butters. When I did research I found out that George Washington Carver was not the inventor of peanut butter. He just promoted different uses of it. Which I always thought of him as the inventor of peanut butter. Where the first use by the Aztecs which I would've never even guessed. Next was my article on the red mood. The article talked of how rare the red moon was. It said it was something that happened around the world only three times per lifetime. Which if you think about it is probably a big deal to people that are really into astrology. It's amazing that we got to see such a rare event. I guess sometimes as people that we overlook the little things such as a red moon. I'm going to remember the night I saw the red moon for the rest of my life because the mood was a different color! Enjoy the little things and I hope everyone is having a good weekend!

week 11

Thursday: On Thursday we listened to two guest speakers talk about their physical disabilities and how they deal with not only the disability itself but also how they deal with other peoples reactions to it. Mr. Peterson talked to us for awhile about his disability and how he's gone through life with his disability. Even though Mr. Peterson might be physically disabled, he is still one of the smartest people I know in and out of the classroom. If you get talking to him about sports it seems like he knows everything about any particular sport you mention. Then the other speaker started telling us  about his disability and what he's gone through. His disability is a little different from Mr. Peterson's. From an early age he was diagnosed with what seemed to be a less severe type of bipolar. Which you wouldn't be able to tell just by talking to him. He really knew how to speak to a classroom and just seemed like any normal person. What I got out of the two speakers that we heard was that they just want to be treated like any normal person. They want to be able to talk sports with their students and joke around just like any other teacher or person in society would want us to do. I mean Mr. Peterson might be in a wheelchair but he's probably not only one of the smartest teachers I've met but one of the smartest people I've met too. I just can't understand how two people that're more friendly can be treated so unfairly sometimes. Mr. Peterson hasn't been able to walk and he understands that, but maybe the people without physical disabilities should understand that most of us will never have to be in a wheelchair, so we should have to respect what he goes through everyday. And same with the other speaker! I don't know what it's like to have any sort of bipolar, but I couldn't imagine having such disorder! All I know is the two men that spoke for us are two people that're stronger mentally then I'll ever be. And I respect them for that.

Week 10

Tuesday: In class on Tuesday we listened to Ed tell us about his life and what he has had to go through. I appreciate what Ed came in and had to say to us. I couldn't imagine being put in his shoes and trying to talk to a group of college students about something so personal. I think that the story Ed tells us about his life is very life changing and moving to everyone listening, not only for people that are transgender, but for everyone. Everyone needs to learn that when the going gets tough you need to fight through it and not just give up on everything. I think that the way Ed tells us about his life experiences really helps us as young naïve students to understand how it REALLY is for someone that is transgender to life. This is how intercultural communication can improve throughout the world. We as a population don't exactly know what it's like to go through such a change or something such as being transgender, which oftentimes will make people feel uncomfortable about the situation or they will act negative toward the situation because it's different from what they learned or what they've been taught throughout their lives. When Ed speaks to our class he seems very comfortable and open about the situation, which in turn makes us as listeners comfortable with him talking to us about it. Today Ed helped me learn a lot about people that are transgender, and I'm glad he is able to spread along his word about all he's been through. Which in turn helps us realize and respect all that he's been through throughout his life.

Week 9

Me and Braydon just listened to what Mary had to say about the GALA community and about her life and her interns life. I apologize for not remembering the interns name. I found it interesting when she asked about the gay and lesbian community in North Dakota, with the response being Rudy telling her that heterosexuality is the norm in North Dakota and that homosexuality is at times looked down upon in the state of North Dakota. I found it interesting when Rudy said that because while I had worked at Albertsons as a cashier I never recalled seeing anyone come thru that could've been openly gay or lesbian. The majority of people being oil workers or mothers of families doing their weekly groceries. I feel as if that makes the gay and lesbian population of Williston extremely low or that most of the population is scared to even go shopping for groceries because of how the state of North Dakota feels about homosexuality. I believe that things need to change. Talking to Mary and her intern I would've never been able to tell if they were gay or lesbian if I had a normal conversation with them. They are just like us with the way they act, eat, and interact with people. I loved learning from her because she was so comfortable with herself, because oftentimes she would even crack jokes to the class. I think that if there were more people that were as comfortable in their own skin as they were the world would be a much better place.
While me, Braydon, and Jarrod are upset that we couldn't make the class we're happy to be in Arizona learning even more about intercultural communication between the northern states and southern states. Even during our baseball games you can tell that things are different between how us and the teams from down south play. We even had an umpire comment the other day asking Marc LeCroix if he was from " up north " because of how he did something in pregame. It's funny how big of a difference a few states can make.

Week 8

Tuesday: In class on Tuesday we played a version of monopoly that I actually found quite enjoyable. I thought that it wasn't only an activity that helped us get involved and kept us interested. I found that this activity "put myself in somebody else's shoes" without physically doing it. It was weird playing a game of monopoly and not being able to buy some of the time. It's like there was some sort of head start for those who were chosen a white person. I ended up losing a couple dollars, which I think was pretty good because I had no strategy or no idea what to do. I really like this activity. Especially with all the different cultures that were even in our little group of 5. It's better that we had such a variety in our group because I believe that it made the game more interesting in that we all had to switch roles and try to do something that we truly haven't done before. Which is try to live in a different time as different people trying to just make it by.
Thursday: Today we watched an influential video on suicide with teenagers that have came out and said that they were gay. I believe that this video is very influential, not only because of the topic being discussed but because the person that is speaking out to us is so emotional about it and he's been through it before. It's amazing the pain and suffering that gay people go through everyday. You'd think that in the land of the free we would be able to accept everyone as equal. And I myself believe that it's a disgrace to ourselves that we are such hypocrites and so terrible to people that maybe a little different in our eyes, but at the same time they're still American. Thankfully, I was raised by a mother that is very accepting and very understanding of such situations. When I was younger my mother brought over one of her gay friends for dinner. At first I was very young and naïve about it and thought to myself that he was weird just cause he was a little different. Then as the dinner went on I realized that he was hilarious, he loved my mothers food, and could carry on a conversation for hours and hours. I realized throughout the dinner that he was no different than we were. And now every time my mother says he's coming over for dinner I get excited because I know my stomach will be sore after from laughing so hard. Pretty much what I got out of this experience is the only difference between me and him were our sexual orientation. And what I hear a lot is that everyone's common goal in life is to fall in love with someone you'll be with forever. If we as straight people have the right to love whoever, shouldn't they?

Week 7

Tuesday: On Tuesday our class started a video on different hate crimes that have been recorded throughout the history of the United States of America. Sadly, Racism still occurs every day in the United States of America. Even though a good portion of americans think racism isn't a huge deal.(Which isn't true) A scary thought is that a lot of these crimes geared toward racism will often times end up in some sort of hate crime. Many people throughout the United States don't even know what a hate crime is! Even I don't know the legal differences between what is and isn't a hate crime. The way I think of it is when somebody commits an act of violence just because of someone's race, gender, sexual orientation, ETC. I believe that this is something that should've been put to a halt a long time ago. But, as we learned in class, everyone needs to individually start leading by example and start making the world easy to live in not only for ourselves but for all around us as well.
Thursday the 27th: Today we began where we left off in the video. A lot of the time it talks about the columbine shooting. When the shooting actually happened I really feel as if I was too young to understand it. But when we were in middle school we had a assembly called Rachel's Dream. This assembly talked about the Rachel that died in the columbine shooting. This assembly helped me understand the situation better and helped me bring to light how scary the situation really would've been. Luckily throughout all my years of school, I haven't experienced anything close to this situation. Next in the video there was a discussion about the different hate people show. The man said that the reason why people hate is because it's easy to hate. I think this is really true. I just don't think that hating someone because of something they can't control is a waste of everyone's time, including your own. You never know, you could be hating on someone that really could be your best friend if you got to know them. I can't quite pinpoint what this video is really about but if I were to say one thing I would have to say that they are teaching to stop such hatred and actions before they happen. To not be so oblivious to something and to act on it before it gets out of control.

Week 6 Tuesday. On Tuesday we had Bonnie Finch the housing director of the school. The surprising part for me was that she was austrailian because no matter how many times I had seen her in the dorms I never really heard her talk so I would have never known. I have never really had prior experience to any Aussy's in my day so it was all surprising learning about it. We learned many things that I didn't know. Like that most of the cities in Austrailia are on the coast and the middle of the whole continent is desert. One thing that really interested me is that you can hunt for kangaroos in Austrailia. Because I always thought that they were the national animal and that you weren't unable to kill them. And I also thought it was interesting that out of all of the things she talked about the whole time was everything but the opera house in sydney. Which everyone in the world would probably say is one of the most famous figures of Austrailia. It was very interesting to learn about something that you never really knew anything about before. Beside watching finding nemo!

Week 5

Tuesday January 11: Today in class we had a nice lady from Ole Miss talk to us about the Islam's and about the prophet Mohammed. I learned many of this back in high school but learned from this that I didn't remember a lot of the information. It's nice to have a little reminder lecture because I forgot how interested I was in this. One interesting fact that I learned is that when Mohammed was introduced as a prophet he was also introduced to all the other prophets. And when he was finished with that the other prophets asked Mohammed if he could lead the group in prayer. We also learned that the book Quran was burned in America by Christian ministers, being that they are so against the book. I found it interesting how she told us what the media pictures the south as, because the way she described it is exactly the way I picture the south in America. Walking into the class I was actually pleasantly surprised that a woman with a thick southern accent was teaching us about Mohammed and the Islam. When you think of the south you think that they only accept people such as themselves and are so pro America that they cannot understand and respect other people's religion. This to me was the most interesting part of the lecture. Today we have woman giving a lecture to us about people that are almost completely opposite of her people. The stereotypical down south wouldn't know barely anything about Islamic people, but she is so intelligent about the history and the culture of the Islamic people that she could teach our class today. I don't think that the intercultural communication was her teaching us about the Islamic culture. I think it's who she is and how interested and knowledgeable she is in this specific topic

4th week

Tuesday February 4th: To start off the class we played the controversial super bowl coca cola commercial which played America the beautiful in many different languages. I thought it was very interesting when the commercial first came on because in class we would also talk about how America is a melting pot full of different cultures and people. I don't see any problem with this commercial, it just really shows what America really is and it really shows that no matter what race or culture we are all Americans.  After that we talked about different jobs and the different demographics within the jobs. We talked about how some companies are starting to make employees know a secondary language. I think this is a great idea, saying that a lot of americans can speak Spanish now. I think that if a company were to make an employee learn a secondary language that they should have to pay for the class in order to get the most potential out of their employees and their companies. I believe that languages die because times have changed. Many people that used to speak latin have no use for it anymore because nobody else in the world would be able to communicate and be successful in the world.

Thursday the 6th: It was interesting starting out with Ellen and Molly's presentation on Canada. I never really thought that being from Canada would be that much different because of similarities to north USA. It's funny that I'm from Utah and complain about how much everything is here and that it's a lot more expensive in Canada even though the exchange rate is so similar. I think it's interesting how border countries like Canada and Mexico can be so different in their own way. I couldn't even imagine trying to go from the metric system to the US's messed up weird system of different measurements. I also think that would be difficult for a Canadian student as well because they have to go from learning everything with the metric system to having to try and learn everything with miles and inches and such. The chocolate covered pretzels that were brought in were wonderful. I've never even thought of this kind of snack, but it was a good first time to have it because they were amazing! Next we watched a little flick on religion. I think it's weird that the world has so many different religions. I'm not a religious guy myself so I really can't speak for it. I just think it's interesting how so many people can believe in so many different things On another note, today starts the beginning of the Sochi Olympics! Probably the biggest event for intercultural communication in the world. I can't wait to be able to watch all the countries compete and especially to watch the hockey games with the newfound respect for hockey players since I have come into North Dakota. I believe that the Olympics is something that everyone needs to experience in person. In 2002, we were lucky enough to have the Olympics held in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was so fun being able to go see events and seeing how downtown was so nicely decorated. It's fun to see all the different types of cultures at the Olympics having fun and dedicating a trip just to cheer on their country.

Week three Blog

Tuesday the 28th: The bread pudding to begin the class was really good. I really loved that it was homemade and not something store bought like I'll probably do. After the bread pudding we had a nice discussion about origination of our families. I love hearing what other people have to say about their families because we have so many different types of people in this class. I really liked learning about what a clan is. I was very uneducated about how the people of Africa worked and just figured that all people were in a certain tribe. But, when hearing about the clans a quick thought came across my mind. I thought that a clan was sort of like a high school in a way. Now I know that a high school and Africa are completely different. But inside the high school there are many different groups. Athletes, smart kids, student government, etc. Sort of like a clan where there is a group inside of a certain group. Next we had a class discussion about Affirmative Action. I like having this conversation because you see Affirmative action just about everywhere you go. If you're applying for a job they might higher someone less qualified from somewhere else just to make their company seem more diverse or to meet the Quota of Affirmative Action. The most people of our age see it today is probably with applying for different colleges or university's. Many of the questions are like, What race are you? Or do you have athsma? Or even some asking if you are left handed. Many different questions just to see if you are different from many of the students that attend the college already. And these people that are different from all the others could end up getting more school paid for then others just because they are different in some sort of way, even though another student can be more qualified with a better resume then the other students.

Thursday the 30th: Today we watched a movie on the human actions and behavior. The first part that really caught my attention is that there are so many different ways to just give a handshake or greet someone throughout the world. It's funny that in some areas of the world you have to shake hands while bargaining until the deals done. I couldn't imagine trying to do something like this in the U.S. Even saying that someone is crazy is slightly different no matter where you go. I thought it was fitting for japan to be so complicated with their spinning the finger counterclockwise on the side of your head rather than clockwise. I feel like that directly relates to the Japanese as a population because they are so much more advanced then anyone else in the world and it seems like even a simple observation can't be easy. The feel like the difference in communication between different areas can be quite troublesome at times. I mean if I were to go to a different country and I asked someone question and they responded by wiggling their heads from side to side I would think they were crazy. This movie showed me that there are plenty of other ways to communicate throughout the world beside speaking. Now if I go out of the country I'll probably notice these things and I'll be able to enlighten whoever I'm with. I thought that the movie we watched n class really showed all the differences in communication well. I learned a lot from todays move from how to greet someone in a foreign country to winning a poker game!

Family Tree

Family Tree

When talking to my grandmas about where my roots are I found out that there are a lot of similarities to those of which any north dakotan would have. I know that both my parents were born and raised in the Bismarck, North Dakota, which is where both of my grandma's have also lived most of their life. My last name "Wagner" is of the German decent and means wagon maker or a wagon driver. My grandma wasn't born in Germany but both of her parents were. Sometimes I'll ask my grandma to speak some German to me because I think it's a cool language and it's really fun to learn about alot of my roots. My other grandma was also from the european side of things. Even though I wasn't able to get a hold of her I was able to figure out that the name Morris is from the english and scottish area of the world. I've also been told by my parents that I have a little bit of Russian in me also. Working on this blog has taught me just a little more about where I came from and what my ancestors had to go through to get here. I would love to be able to learn more about my family and be able to see if I'm related to anyone cool! Good luck everyone!

Tuesday 21 of January: A little bit of nutella today was just the right thing for our class!!! haha I liked today's activity. It really puts into perspective of how things really are and how things get depicted in life. I can't wait until Thursday!

Thursday the 22nd Corinna just brought some delicious cream puffs. I found the very enjoyable because I really love having treats instead of having anything healthy. I still have my metabolism so I'm going to use it while it lasts.

I also thought that the list we made of what an American looked like was kind of funny because most of the words on our list were very negative things. Which really makes me think if other countries think this badly of Americans

We had a nice conversation about ethnocentrism. Which means that you are biased about your country in someway. I think that this depicts a lot of Americans in our age group today. Because so many teenagers are so not use to change in their life that they don't take nicely to what other countries or even states offer.

Talking about the difference between America and Japan makes me really want to visit the country of Japan. It seems so different and so opposite of what Americans learn and teach everyday and I think it would be cool to see something different. I also have always wanted to see Japanese baseball compared to American baseball because I've heard that baseball in Japan is so much different then baseball ever was in America.

Friday: fridays class really helped me in understanding what this class was about when we actually got to hear more about it. I can't wait for the days to come where we get into the learning of the class!

Wednesday: I thought that class on Wednesday was a very productive way to introduce the class and I found that I will be very excited to start this semester and especially this class. My goals for this class would be to be able to understand how to communicate between cultures and to find out many other things about other cultures. And to obviously get an A! Can't Wait!