Differences

An important part of life is to embrace our surroundings and situations and although they may be less than ideal in our minds, the reality is that we have to accept them and do what we can to embrace our differences. As we were presenting our group charters and as we were talking to our fellow classmates this week I could not help but notice the differences in the groups and in peoples' opinions.

Differences are what make us unique and awesome, I personally love hearing opinions that are different from my own, many times I feel my opinion is better but this is because I have ownership of it. My favorite activity of the week was when we did our networking activity, I really enjoyed getting advice about things that I have been pondering about from someone who is an outsider to the situation and does not have a bias as to how the situation plays out. A situation in which you or someone else is outside of the people directly affected allows and encourages opinions that are for the greater good of the people that are involved because you are not invested.

This activity has changed my outlook on networking, now I look at it as an opportunity to get to know someone who could potentially help me in the future. I usually see networking as a way to use other peoples in my goals of progress and self improvement. Looking at situations where I meet someone new and thinking about how I can enrich their lives will help me be more sincere in talking them and really make the whole encounter a more pleasant experience.

Table Manners, They are just for the table.

Every parent tries to teach their children about how to have good manners and how to treat other people. Well now it looks like Mommy and Daddy's councils are coming in to play. Manners, as we have discussed in class, can make or break a person. They can indicate that you are not the right person for the job or that you should not be taken seriously; contrarily, it may do the opposite, the other person may have their feelings of doubt reinforced because of your manners and the way that you conduct yourself. These days life and success is heavily tied to impressions and who you know, make a bad impression with someone and you may as well just be committing professional suicide. The importance of having good manners and good personal awareness is a crucial skill to develop. Since manners, as well as self awareness in professional settings, are so important you might be asking what am I going to do? Well since today is Thursday, and it is never too early to start improvement, I will find at least one aspect in my life pertaining to my manners and courtesy by Monday, January 20, 2014, at I will work on improving that thing. This change will be part of the new me, a more pleasant and professional person. I invite anyone who is reading this post to do similarly, no one is perfect so why not find something that  needs fixing and fix it. It may not be by Monday (you may not be readings this before the 20th) but give yourself a time frame and make it work. What do you have to lose? Worst case scenario you will become a more pleasant person, so hey give it a shot.

Nathan

Grammar Is Hard, Who Knew!?

A good friend of mine once told me, "Speaking is easy, communication is hard", while I never really agreed with this statement because I have found it easy to communicate, I do agree that the grammar aspect of communicating is difficult. While I was doing the reading for class this week I came to the realization that writing with correct grammar is quite complicated. With this in mind I still studied since I knew that we would have a grammar quiz during Thursday's class. The question that I had to answer for myself before I was able to buckle down and study was, why is grammar important? I did a little bit of soul searching and I realized that grammar is what separates someone from sounding uneducated from sounding educated. Using correct grammar is very important in the professional world and it is something that can make or break an impression about you. As a result of this realization I have resolved to dedicate myself to really internalize grammar, not just learn it for the test that we will have. Rather, I want to put it in use to become more refined in my speaking and writing, how this will be accomplished is through doing the readings more than once to be sure that I understand the concept and if I don't I will talk to the class TA's to get help. Aside from this I will practice implementing the grammar principles that I learn so that I get used to the new way of speaking and writing, this way grammatically correct English will not be as much like a foreign language, but rather it will be something familiar that I can use effectively.