AMETH 300 Blog

 This past week I've been studying conflict styles and learned about the one I usually use to confront conflict in my life. As I learned more about the different ways to engage and deal with conflict, I decided it would be interesting to go talk to someone close to me, but about something we don't see eye-to-eye about.  I picked my girlfriend because we know each other, probably better than anyone else, and yet we have disagreements about certain things and like to talk about them. We hang out all the time, so these topics naturally come up in our conversations. One particular thing that we have disagreements about is the fact that she cares a lot about animals and could never kill an animal. She believes that all life is important and I on the other hand don't really mind animal deaths. I told her once I would let a hundred dogs and cats die just to save one person, because I think humans inherently hold more value than other animals. It's difficult to talk about becau

 This last week I discovered what my predominant conflict style is. I am primarily competitive, meaning I normally look to see what would benefit me most in a situation and work towards a resolution based on that. I would say that is usually accurate, as I typically have my own interests in mind first. However, there were two other conflict styles that were right behind competition, those being collaboration and accommodation. I would say this is true too, because I often find myself thinking of others during conflict as well and trying to make sure everyone wins if possible. I guess if it came down to myself or others I would have to be swayed or make a conscious decision to put others first, since I naturally put myself first. As I move into my future careers, I think this will benefit me for competitive reasons. I may be able to obtain better positions or have my voice be heard over others, but that means that I may be seen as a little more distant or selfish since I'm not a rea

 This week I watched a show called "We Are The Champions" on Netflix. It's a show about various types of people with weird talents and it basically covers different competitions between these people in a documentary style. This particular episode followed spicy pepper eaters, who flew in from all around the world to compete in a head-to-head pepper eating competition hosted in South Carolina. Most of the people who attended this event looked like mostly white, lower to middle class southern families.  However, in terms of the competitors are concerned, there was an equal representation of men, women, orientations, and cultural backgrounds in this competition. There were a few key celebrities in the pepper eating community; one being a white man who is a self-described daredevil and spicy food enthusiast. He owns a Youtube channel and has a relatively high following. Another character is a transgender woman with an Asian wife who took all of the hate and discrimination she

 Conflict comes in many different forms but it always stems from the same thing. I would say that conflict always arises from a disagreement between two things. It could be a difference in opinion, values, or beliefs between two people or an internal struggle within yourself. If I were to have a conflict, it comes in one of those two forms, either I have a conflict with another individual or I struggle with an internal conflict.  Growing up my family addressed conflict in a calm and rational manner and we had both parties explain their individual opinions and concerns so we could reach a point of understanding. It was never outright stated how to deal with conflict but we always went about it this way when we had sibling fights or arguments with our parents. I personally don't mind conflict and I enjoy being exposed to conflict between others so I can analyze the situation for myself and hopefully learn something. I think there is a difference, however in healthy conflict and unhea

 I have biases. Like a lot of biases. And I don't realize them all the time. Most of the time they don't have huge impacts on my life but I feel like they affect the people around me. I ever used to notice the ways that I made snap assumptions about people without even knowing them but after learning more about race and culture I realized that I am just as bit judgmental as I am perceptive. Being the person that I am I try to make judgments to make sense of the world around me and I always thought my judgments were correct. I think muscular guys are stupid, I hate most Frat guys, I think people who watch anime are weird, etc. I have always thought all of these things to be true, and to be honest these ideas have caused me to be needlessly hostile towards people I don't know. I have categorized people before I even knew them and I feel now more than ever that I should stop being so biased towards others for no reason.  But how am I supposed to fight against it? I think there

I watched the Disney movie Soul last week. It popped up on the main page of Disney+ and I thought it looked fun because I love how Disney is always able to make family-friendly shows that have significant underlying messages to them. I didn't have to do much looking for interesting movies because most of the movies coming out today have diverse casts from many different backgrounds. I don't watch many movies, and when I do usually the cast is very diverse. The only exception is that lots of older movies have predominantly white characters, both animation and live actors. I have never chosen movies based on this criteria but movies I hear about are part of American culture and older movies with a white cast are more commonly part of American culture. I chose to watch this movie because it is about a black man in his thirties who is trying to make it big as a jazz performer. He thinks he knows what he wants in life but throughout the movie he learns what is really important in li