Thursday, July 17, 2008
The 2nd and last post (or maybe)
And I have came to write the 2nd post for my LMS blog.
I actually don't find it a chore at all to do this. Yes, I would use to think that "oh my god..so boring", but with the things that I'm going through now, this is certainly a good outlet.
Basically after a whole semester of LMS, it has certainly opened up my eyes to many matters. If you all recall my previous post where I became self-aware and identified myself as a "doormat" who constantly do things in order to stand to have a position, to make it seem that if i do something, i will gain something. Now, I have change that. I am no longer that doormat that many people see. I have changed to someone that haves my own voice, find my own ways to go around the obstacles in life.
Our first lesson after "Self-Awareness" was Time and Priority Management. This lesson is one of the lessons I treasure most because of my ill-time management problem. For me, almost everything is done at the eleventh hour or it is done at the last minute. Sometimes, even though I start doing my project work work early, I would take my own sweet time to complete. What Time and Priority Management has taught me about having an "Activity Log". The Activity Log would help me organise my timings and work. But even having this activity log, it all depends on my own will. With my stiff mentality, I can just throw the log away and go on with my rotten habits. Therefore, it is all about telling oneself, whether he wants to change or not. Would he want to always feel the stress when doing work at the last minute, or does he want to do his work organised and feeling less stress. Currently, I still feel that I have poor Time and Priority Management due to my projects and exams coming out. I know that having an Activity Log would help, but because with my group members and revision work all on the line, it can be even quite hard to organise certain things even! This will change as I have decided to make changes when the new semester come, to do my tutorial homework every time on the day after the lecture is over, hence I have actually supposedly "lesser" work to do even! Not only that, I will have my own personal timetable to sort out my revision, watching my favourite television shows and also going out with my friends.
MY FRIENDS :) MY BUDDES :) LOVE!
During one of our lessons, we have went through the topic of "Listening". Now what is listening all about? From the notes, listening is defined as "mastering the ability to focus and maintain attention in the “understanding” process." For me however, listening can be just defined as "being understanding". Listening is more than being a good listener, it is also about being a good friend, guardian, or peer. Effective listening is an active 2 way process. An effective listener will remain non-judgmental and empathetic to keep the communication channels open.
He or she will also use techniques to ensure the accuracy of the received information by the person telling information. I for once, feel that I am an effective listener for my friends. Why is that? I do not despise people who tell me their problems, and I shall try to come out with an effective solution. Alot of people come to me, pouring their heart out, and yes, I will not pretend like others "okays, I'll lend you my shoulder", but instead, I will really be their friend, because at this time, everything is crucial.
But I do feel that I am a bad listener for myself. People will tell me my faults and cracks such as like "can you sleep earlier?", "can you start studying?". AHA. These are questions always asked by your parents. But, to be truly an effective listener, I believe that I have to listen to what others have to say about me, and not only themselves. Thus, I have to overcome those "Internal Barriers", which includes our physical state and our personal filters. These personal filters include my beliefs and strong feelings. Sometimes, I have a type of mentality that will prevent me from listening to what others have to say. This mentality means that I am not able to take these things seriously into consideration. My beliefs and strong feelings include that I constantly think that I am always in the right, and know one can affect or move my stand. But after I know that I have these problems, I have been trying my best, to give a neutral view to what my friends and fellow peers say about me. Sometimes, when my friends are telling me somethings, I would have another filter and that is "assumptions". I would just jump to conclusions like, "hais, she's going to say that I'm in the wrong, always blame me. Everything also blame me." and right after that, I will tend to change my attention to somewhere. After I came to understanding of the filter through the LMS lesson, I will always take the opportunity to fully listen to what someone has to say first. Alright, MAYBE NOT ALWAYS, but at least I am trying!
Hence, an effective listen is to know how to listen, and know how to listen about yourself too! This is kind of like self-awareness. We must take note of the ways to ensure effective listening, and that includes that OUR ATTITUDE MATTERS, BE OPEN MINDED, RESIST THE BARRIERS OF LISTENING (and for my case, the personal internal barriers), NON-VERBALS, RESPONDING APPROPRIATELY and last but not least, and empathetic listening responses!
The next lesson that we have went through in LMS is on managing anger. Now what is anger? Anger is a natural emotional response to perceived frustration, threats, disappointments, and stress. There are also strong cognitive and physiological components accompanying the emotions of anger.
Our group members taking a picture for our GROUP PRESENTION 1!
For me actually, I do not have an problem with anger. Yes, I do get angry alot of times. But as a more introvert person, I do not show these feelings at all. I will always tell myself, whats the need for violence, scolding people loudly, or showing attitude to people? I usually keep these problems to myself, even though it might be unhealthy, but yet, I will find sources and ways to relieve this internal anger right inside me.
Do you rememer what i've said in my previous post about the group of friends that I've made. Yes, there are many conflicts between now and these has caused me to be kind of angry. At times, I feel that I am doing not enough, and some people are just taking the lead. Those taking the lead seems to act as if they run the whole project group! I have tried to voice out my comments but sometimes they just won't listen! Due to my anger inside me, I have no output of letting this out. But thankfully, one of the group members spoke to me and said that because things are on a tight schedule, not everyone can do an equal share of work. I finally understood why I was angry, that I was angry with myself, and not with them because I was not understanding enough as a team member.
There are also times where I can get angry with my team member at LMS. Yes I do. Some of them do not turn up on time, making us wait for an hour, and making us ineffective. At other times, he can just walk off after just an hour of meeting just to meet his girlfriend! But as I do not get over-frustrated easily, I just told my team-members to just accommodate and tell them that we will complete the meeting another time. There is no point of getting angry as it can result in internal conflicts which my result in disharmony and thus an ineffective team. Hence I believe that I have good anger management.
After this incident, our group had to come together to do our Group Assignment 2. This group assignment 2 was very important as it held alot of percentage of the overall grade. Our group manage to put all our problems aside and came up with an innovative idea. Our topic was on "managing negative emotions" and what I did was to take the lead to come up with the concept of doing a video. We wanted to do something that no other groups have done and I can proudly say that i felt that our group did the best. Our groups even copied the way we presented in our Group Assignment 1 for their Group assignment 2!
We met up at Vivocity to film the night scene where Rose sank, which took 3 days of filming to complete due to the very bad weather during those times. We also embarrassed ourselves by "dining at a restaurant" at the food court in Harbor Front Centre for our video. It was embarrassing because we had to wear formal clothes, dress and suit, right at the food court! However, due to these factors, it actually made our group even more bonded and closer to each other as we go through thick and thin together!
Our group achieved a video that I am proud to say that it was very creative. We did a video based on the movie "Titanic" where Rose wanted to commit suicide by jumping off. We have adapted this story so as to make our video humorous but yet keeping the serious content inside to put the point across that suicidal should never be an option. Our presentation had a "quiz" section which no one answered! This called for quick thinking and our group decided to just give the prizes to the group who listens. That is effective and good listening man!
On our latest lesson, we learnt to cope with fear. Fear is something that is caused by ourselves and not due to external reasons. This is the definition that I made up for myself. Fear is self-initiated and can be controlled.
What do we fear? And why do we fear?
There are many factors. Some can even be bad experiences caused in our childhood, or even phobias. All these can be overcome if we had a will. If there's a will, there's a way - or so the saying goes. For me as a Christian, I always tell my problems to God. God comforts me and tells me not to worry. But I believe that non-Christians can do the same. They should have their imaginary mirror that tells them not to worry, and that actually that they are not alone. With technology so advanced now, we can just call a friend or anyone, to tell them our problems. I feel that as long as we share our fears, we will not be that afraid anymore.
This whole semester or LMS has been an enriching experience. It's not that I am bullshitting or whatever. But there are many obstacles and events such as the Group Assignments that made me go through alot. I would definitely miss the times where our teacher puts in the effort to explain and give examples of life problems. LMS is something that I will keep in my memory and practice in my day-to-day activities.
I will still have to go through alot of problems in the near future, but at least, I have now solved some of them already.
AND THIS IS ME! THANKYOU FOR TAKING YOU TIME TO LISTENING TO ALL MY RANTS! LOVES :)
Thank you.
Episode ended at 1:15 AM | PERMALINK
