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.