Patience

Never in my life have I spent so much time studying grammar.  Looking back on my first post, I can't believe how far I've come since then.  I was so overwhelmed with sentence structure.  However, I can finally distinguish the difference between a phrase and an independent clause.  I can also tell whether a sentence is simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex.  While I know I am still far from perfect when it comes to grammar, I know I've improved immensely.  Tomorrow I get to see how well I actually do understand grammar.  

If there's anything I've learned over this last week it's that I need to be patient with my learning.  Most of the time I want to learn something and know it perfectly without studying.  Some people can do this; I, however, can't.  I've noticed, especially when it comes to grammar, I need to be patient and really understand the basics. By being patient, I don't get stressed out and overwhelmed.  When I get overwhelmed, I lose focus and find studying extremely miserable and useless.

Let's be honest; school is not "fun."   No one is in school to have a great time.  We don't, however, have to be miserable.  I catch myself being miserable a lot of the time.  By being patient and really understanding what we're here for, we can find learning enjoyable. When I change my mind set to where it should be, I find things easier to learn.

Positive Communication

Sometimes we may hear someone say something very rude or even something negative about life, and we think to ourselves, "Wow! That person is so negative!" However, when we respond to and email or text of someone, say, asking for permission to do something and we respond by saying "No. I'm sorry", we would never think of ourselves as being negative.  While we may not be negative by responding that way, our tone is negative.  This kind of response isn't even rude; it's more or less a natural response.  To have a positive tone one might respond by thanking that person for asking permission and encouraging him or her to continue asking for permission in the future. 

This idea had never really occurred to me.  However, when I think of myself being the one to ask permission, I would much rather have a positive response to my request.  A positive response lets me know that I did the right thing by asking permission, and the person I asked isn't annoyed by me requesting permission.  

When I have bad news I’m going to start working on responding positively rather than naturally which often times can be negative. 

Here a humorous way to give bad news in a good way. Enjoy:)

Communication is Everything

Communication is a major part of every aspect of life.  It's literally in everything we do.  As I reflect on my morning I see how critical communication is.  The following are examples of my communication before I even sat down in class today:

1.     I kissed my wife good bye as she left for work to show her that I love her.

2.     I responded to a text from a group member to let him know I would print off a paper.

3.     I got frustrated with the jeep in front of me who wouldn't turn right at a red light when there weren't any cars coming.  (Sometimes it's best when people don't see or hear our communication to them)

4.     I put my hand up to thank a driver that let me cross the street.

5.     I gave knucks to a friend – who was on his phone communicating with someone else – to say hello without actually verbally saying "Hello."

Communication helps us express how we feel and what we want or need.  When searching for jobs or when we're already in a career, the way we interact with teams, managers, bosses, and clients is important.  With many people we need to learn about them and their beliefs and customs before we can effectively communicate with them.  If we don't take the time to do this, we may give a thumbs up to a Middle-Eastern client to let him know everything is great, while, to him, he's seeing the middle finger up.  Understanding our audience is crucial to being an effective communicator.

For me, I'm going to start focusing on different aspects of communication.  When others speak to me, I'm going to critique (not out loud) their communication to me.  Also, when I speak, I'm going to critique myself and really focus on whether I'm communicating clearly and effectively.  By doing this, I know I'll improve my skills of effective communication.

First Week Back

This first week back in school has been a week full of learning.  However, it's not exactly the type of learning I was expecting to have.  It's been more of a humbling type of learning about myself and my knowledge. I've learned the following this week:

·         I've forgotten almost every principle I use to know about accounting now that I'm in a 400 level accounting class.

·         I have a very small knowledge about the Doctrine & Covenants compared to what I thought I did. 

·         I have no idea what the difference is between a simple and a complex sentence. 

·         I have absolutely no knowledge of how to blog. 

I'd like to refer to and focus on bullet point number 3.  Why can't a sentence just be a sentence?  I've got a whole lot to learn about sentence structure, punctuation, etc.  I know it will be very important for me to be successful in not only finding a job, but also being successful in my career.   

Some of the ways I'm going to attempt improving these weaknesses is first, studying them and learning the different types of sentences structures and the components within each sentence.  After that I'm going to bring that knowledge into the different things I read such as magazines, newspapers, Facebook posts and whatever else I read.  I want to be able to break apart sentences until I understand what the different components are in different sentences. Hopefully by doing this I can improve how I write and speak in my everyday life.