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!