"That's not what I meant!"

“That’s not what I meant!”

            Everyone has very different perceptions on things. I can think of countless times when things were said either to me, or that I have said that have been perceived incorrectly. A specific time that comes to mind is this one time with my best friend. Her and I always stick together no matter what the circumstance and it even occurs when it comes to backing one another up, which would make some people defensive or feel intimidated. So during our junior year of high school there was this girl who started to hang around us, and we did not mind. She was nice and we were both friends with her. One day she told us that she feels like we don’t want her to hang around us because we always talk about things and do things that do not include her. We both immediately felt really bad about this because we never wanted her to feel like we did not want her to hang around us. We were just always so used to talking to each other, and planning things to do with each other,  that we never thought that us being so close could make someone else feel inferior. The way we did things were just out of habit and since we were always together it made it difficult to break that habit. Thankfully we both explained to her that we never wanted her to feel like we didn’t want her to hang out with us and that we would try to fix it and make things better. She understood and to this day we are all three still friends and I feel that as our friend, when she pointed that out to us it made us all three closer, and made us feel more open with each other.

            I think the concept of “That’s not what I meant” probably happens at least once a day for people especially for those with jobs or lifestyles that include interacting with a lot of different people.  I mean if you think about it, you could be at the grocery store, and lets say you make a comment about the store being out of a product that you regularly buy, they may take this in a manner in which they think you are being rude or “smart” with them, when really you are just pointing out that an item that you regularly buy at that grocery store has been out of stock for quite some time.

Emotions in Conflict

Emotions in Conflict

            The emotions that are the most common for me when I experience conflict are anger, but I typically get so angry that I get emotional and begin to cry, I either feel anger in conflict, stay calm and professional or I detached myself from the situation and from feelings toward the conflict. The different situations that I experience conflict in are, conflict in family, conflict at work, conflict in the classroom and conflict with friends.

            Conflict in family, everyone has conflict with there family, but everyone’s family deals with conflict differently, some families yell it out, while others talk it out, and some families may even just ignore each other. My family I would like to think deals with conflict in a fairly reasonably. My emotions toward conflict in family are usually all over the place, I tend to get angry or upset.

Conflict in work, I work as a nanny for a family that has a couple other nanny’s as well. There is “workplace drama” within the nanny’s, when it comes to scheduling, and the kids. My emotion or way of dealing with conflict at work is I am very calm in these situations and I try to resolve the situation to the best of my ability, I try my best to be professional and take a very unbiased approach.

Conflict in the classroom, I experience conflict in the classroom when it comes to classmates as well as sometimes with teachers. I have had experiences with teachers that do not look to help the students. Like with my work, I deal with conflict in the classroom very professionally, in the classroom I am goal-oriented, and by that I mean I am looking to do the best I can in that class and when dealing with conflict that could interfere with that I try to stay professional.

Conflict with friends is a big one since it is my first year of college and the friends you make in college sort of act as family since your family is not around. My emotions in conflict with friends are when I typically detach myself from the situation. I push it off and wait for the other people to calm down and see the situation with a more clear and level-headed view.

After reflecting on my personal emotions in conflict and thinking of different setting and situations in which I have experienced conflict, I would like to say that I am a very calm and level headed person in conflict. I try to be unbiased and see everyone who is involved in the conflict situations point of view. 

Big Hero 6 is Bae to the Max

Animated movies do not really do it for me and don't grab my attention. I am not one of those people who will just indulge in an animated movie. However, with Big Hero 6, I actually really enjoyed watching it the first time at the movie theaters (watching it for the movie night was my second time). 

This movie was surprisingly well produced. It combined good moments of comedy with good action-packed scenes as well as included heart-felt moments. Big Hero 6 is about a little kid named Hiro, his best friend who's a robot (Baymax), his group of four friends who all become superheroes through the use of their imaginations and intelligence. Hiro is a prodigy and genius and graduated from high school at a young age of thirteen. Hiro goes onto an adventure and quest to figure out who stole his invention, the microbots, which in turn caused the death of his brother, Tadashi.

The movie starts off in a cute-looking little city called San Fransokyo, which is a combination between San Francisco and Tokyo. Hiro is seen bot-fighting, which is illegal. Contestants bring their own robots that they have created to fight each other. Hiro, in a way, scams his opponent and gets into trouble with his henchmen and eventually the cops. But in the nick of time, Tadashi (Hiro's older brother), cruises along in his motorcycle to save his little brother, yet again. This beginning scene demonstrates Hiro's genius intellect as well as his close relationship with his older brother. Tadashi is disappointed in how Hiro is using his genius intellect (in bot-fighting) because he knows he has more potential than that. Tadashi decides to bring Hiro to his college where he reluctantly inspires Hiro to try to join as well. In order to be accepted and considered to be in the school, Hiro creates the micro-bots to be entered into a science fair. They can be seen as metallic legos which are controlled mentally by whoever wears the controlling headband. However, in an attempt to steal Hiro's invention, someone sets the convention on fire. As a result, Tadashi dies from the resulting explosion from the building. 

After finding out that his invention had been stolen and that the one who stole it was the one who caused his brother's death, Hiro goes on this quest to stop this man. Hiro uses Baymax, Tadashi's robotic creation to help people, to help him in his revengeful quest. As Hiro is creating software to "teach" Baymax to fight and hurt others, this to me is seen as a parallel to how Hiro is being corrupted by his own thoughts of revenge. The "good" chip in Baymax, the one that allows Baymax to help others is a parallel back to Tadashi and his morals and might even refer back to how Hiro was good and then gets taken over by his thoughts of revenge. By the end of the movie, Hiro takes the villain down the "good" and "right" way, without revenge in mind.

Revenge was one of the main conflicts within this movie. Hiro struggles with this conflict due to the death of his brother. Hiro's actions illustrate how strong and how far someone will go in order to get revenge. Hiro's quest for revenge was unhealthy and hurt everyone around him. While fighting Callaghan after first getting their new costumes, Hiro's order to Baymax, to annihilate Callaghan, put the rest of his team's well-being in jeopardy. Hiro nearly made Baymax take Callaghan's life if it wasn't for the "good" chip being put back into Baymax. Throughout the rest of the movie, Hiro realizes what he did was wrong and that revenge isn't the way to solve any situation.

The "Big" Night!

This assignment was really unique and was different than most assignments I have ever had assigned to me before. It was a good unique because it was a fun experience. The movie night was a success and was fun. For our project, my group and I decided to watch “Big Hero 6”, which is an animated movie about a robotics prodigy, Hiro, who lives in the city of San Fransokyo. If you couldn’t tell by the name, this city is a combination of San Francisco and Tokyo. Next to his older brother, Tadashi, Hiro’s closest companion is Baymax. Baymax is Tadashi’s greatest robotics creation and Baymax’s sole purpose is to take care of people. After a devastating turn of events, Hiro is thrown into the middle of a dangerous plot and in response; Hiro transforms Baymax and his other four friends into a band of high-tech heroes in order to take down a villain who is using Hiro’s own creation, the microbots, for evil.

Personally, this movie night didn’t feel like an assignment or project which was a highlight. To me, it was just a group of friends getting together to watch a movie. Before we watched the movie, we had an issue finding one of our group members, but eventually found him in one of his friend’s dorm. We decided to watch the movie in that same friend’s dorm since there was a big tv in there. As I was watching the movie I wasn’t looking for anything specific pertaining to the project. I was just enjoying the movie to the fullest which made it fun for me. Watching movies with friends always makes movies that much more enjoyable. After the movie, we discussed what the main conflicts were. We didn’t split up the work for this project, instead we all decided to work together on each part and it turned out to be very successful.

A Conflict Memory

Last semester, I had a number of extremely disturbing conflicts in one of my classes. I had a professor who was awfully condescending, offensive, and at times somewhat racist. This professor claimed to have our best interest in mind throughout the semester, but it was clear that he played favorites in the classroom, and I was not one of those favorites.

            In the beginning of the class, I was struggling with comprehending the material so I would ask questions in order to receive help. Instead of being eager to teach me, my professor was patronizing and apparently could not believe that I actually needed help. After encountering his audacity when I tried to understand the work better, I never went to him for help again. This made it hard on me because I had to work twice as hard to figure things out on my own, but to me it was a better alternative than having to speak to him one on one and feeling judged and extremely stupid.

            Coming into college I knew I would come across people who would test my patience, but my very opinionated professor took that to a whole new level. He somehow turned our class into a politics class where he tried to persuade his students into believing the way he did. (Let me remind you that the class description had nothing to do with this.) I won’t go into detail for privacy reasons, but let’s just say that my professor had very detailed opinions about certain races and if we didn’t agree with him at some point, we were not one of those favorites that I previously mentioned.

I sat through this class with so many comments going through my head that I never actually told my professor. Instead, I would take my anger out by venting to my parents. I felt irritated, angry, disturbed, and so much more during that entire semester because of his one class. Looking back, I am glad I chose not to express my feelings towards him because I believe that I, as a student, should respect my professors even if they may have different beliefs than I do. I also felt that telling him my opinions on how he taught would not be worth my time. All I kept thinking to myself those three months was “It’s only one semester.”

Usually in conflicts, I have no problem expressing myself and telling the other person how I feel about them. For example, if it were a family member, a friend, or even a random stranger, I would generally like to get everything out in the open. But in this particular conflict, I thought it would be best that I reduce my very strong emotions.

Opposing Conflict Styles , Deborah and John (Movie Blog)

In the movie Spanglish there are a series of conflicts, but one of the bigger ones are the conflicts between John and Deborah. The biggest conflict is Deborah’s infidelity. Both as a couple are forced to work together to resolve family conflicts but it is difficult for them to come to the same conclusion as they have very different conflict resolution styles.

Deborah has a style that is competitive and wants to be the one with the upper hand in conflicts. Even if it means making herself as the victim or if she truly believes she is right and trying to be helpful. We this style from Deborah when she buys her daughter, Berni, clothes a size to small believing that it will motivate her to lose weight. But all she causes is a conflict with Bernie and makes her upset after already having a bad day. We can see it again after Flor confronts Deborah on taking her daughter out without Flors permission. When confronted she tells Flor to sleep on it and not to make a big deal out of it because she was only trying to help her daughter fit in and not feel left out.

John’s conflict style on the other hand is avoidant, he tries to get away from conflict at all costs and refuses to believe certain things have happened in order to avoid the conflict situation. As Berni’s father he was involved in the clothes situation but he didn’t do much about it and decided to stand aside. He could have intervened and help solve the problem between mother and child but his avoidant style didn’t allow him to play the role of mediator.

Deborah’s and John’s conflict styles really clash after John learns that Deborah has been having an affair. He is in complete denial at first and wishes not to listen to what Deborah is trying to explain. She is trying to explain her motives to why she cheated and wants to talk things out. By then it was too late in Johns eyes to actually work things out and be collaborative and he was still being avoidant.

Their opposing conflict styles and not willing to collaborate earlier caused for their relationship to fail and eventually end. If they had been aware of ways to solve their problems and perhaps taken a course like HCOM 214, it could have helped them in their conflict resolution.

Movie Blog - Group Experience

Working with a group is never easy and always has some conflict. Now don’t take it in a bad way the conflicts are not always bad they just simply are inevitable when people are working together. The most common conflict I believe is schedule conflicting, people usually have set schedules and routines set and a group project can alter that. Sometimes simply finding a time to meet as a group is difficult. 

Luckily with technology, such as Google Docs, working as a team has become a bit easier. Although communication trouble is always there like figuring out who will take the lead and stepping in to make sure necessary work is done. To avoid conflict communication should be present, if conflict does arise then there needs to be communication in order to solve the problems. Negotiations may need to be done to be able to accommodate everyone’s needs. Negotiations may be for two group members to meet and discuss the project, and one of them could inform the member who was unable to meet. Or they could agree to meet at an earlier or later time that would accommodate all group members. 

For my specific group the biggest conflict was when to meet and who was doing what parts of the project. To solve this conflict we simply divided the work equally among group members. We decided on two conflict situations from the film each. From there it depended on the person on how many slides they wished to prepare, the minimum requirement was a slide per topic. To make sure that each team member had in fact watched the movie a short discussion on which issues we all saw in the film and which we would like to address. If you had not watched the film you would not have known what conflicts were present in the film.

 The final conflict situation that could arise was on presentation day, are all team members present, are they willing to present? Fortunately in my group we were all present and we decided that one person will be managing the power point slides while the other two presented. This certain group project was actually one of the better group projects that I’ve had to work with, making everything run smoothly.