Gender and Money

I'm currently reading Dave Ramsey's Complete Guide to Money with my husband and part of a class we are taking together. Something that I read last night connects to chapter 2 in class, and that's the connection of the culture of gender to money spending and debt. In the book it addresses that debt affects each gender differently. Masculine genders are experience lowered self value and self-esteem when experiencing debt and money troubles while in a committed relationship, like marriage. Feminine cultures report feeling terrified when experiencing debt and money troubles.  This ties in to quite a bit of our chapter 2 on culture. Here are some other things in the book that relate.

1) Men love to share facts; women love to express feelings.  Report vs Rapport in our text! 
2) Men connect by doing things; women connect by talking.
3) Men tend to compete; women tend to cooperate.
4) Men tend to be controlling; women tend to be agreeable.
5) Men tend to be independent; women tend to be interdependent.

Do you find this to be true? What are your thoughts?

My Brain has a different plan...

One of the kinds of noise that we'll learn about in Chapter 1 is psychological noise. That kind of noise includes thoughts that distract you from successful communication.  After Chad's story this morning, I had a hard time focusing on teaching my second class, Enriched English 11, right away. I was thinking about a car accident I was in when I was about 19. We were hit in an intersection by a driver we thought had been drinking. Since we were only going a couple of blocks, I hadn't buckled yet; this was the only time in my life I failed to buckle right away.  If my now husband hadn't grabbed my head and pulled me down right after the collision, my head would have gone through the window.  I kept replaying the incident in my head, and because of that, I was distracted at the start of 2nd block today. That's an example of me experiencing psychological noise. Anytime you've been daydreaming or thinking about later plans/obligations and didn't process what someone was telling you, you were experiencing psychological noise, too.

Source: http://images.clipartpanda.com/triage-clipart-2012-02-04_4063_accident.jpg

Red

In Enriched English 11, we are reading Ethan Frome.  Although I've taught this book for years, this is the first quarter I really thought about all the other meanings for the color read in our society outside of the somewhat outdated meaning of the color as it is in the book. When we covered nonverbal communication, we talked about color as an example.  When it comes to color as symbolism in literature, it's a perfect complement to this idea.

Play?

Yesterday, Murphy and I went over to a family friend's house for lunch and board games.  The first game we played was called "Toss the Cookies."  After that, we took an ice cream break, and then we played a Disney Trivial Pursuit game.  Murphy was playing with some toys  in the other room after ice cream, and instead of asking if he was going to come play the Disney game, I simply asked "Murphs, are you going to play?" I meant play the board game, but he thought I meant stay and play with the toys he was currently playing with. It took me a couple times of asking the same question to understand that we were each interpreting the word "play" differently.  That's an example of miscommunication in words, or verbal miscommunication.

Awkward Interview

One kind of conversation that we covered this week was interviews.  In poking around online, I fell upon this really awkward interview. It doesn't really have a proper opening. Nor does it have a clear business. It just gets kind of stuck! Since it doesn't follow a clear pattern/process, there seems to be some confusion and tension.  Although the clip is near 3 minutes, it really only takes about 1 1/2 minutes to see things fall apart. 

Colbert and Affleck

Wearin' the Green

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day.  It's our families tradition to get all decked out in green and watch the St. Patrick's Day Parade at noon in St. Paul.  This is a tradition we treasure and enjoy. Every year is a little different, especially the weather, but there are things that keep it consistent, too.  This year, after our annual walk to Candyland to load up on some sweets, we ran some errands. One of those was to my favorite spice shop, Penzeys, which is in Apple Valley, not St. Paul. When I walked into the store, the woman working gave me a double take. Then, she commented that, "Oh yeah! It's St. Patrick's Day, isn't it."  You see, in St. Paul, it was completely normally to be dressed up for the holiday, even expected, but in this small store in Apple Valley, it was unexpected. This is an example of differing cultures.

Thanks Pixar: Nonverbal Communication Example

Chapter 6 has been all about the messages we send without using words.  This Pixar video does an outstanding job of that.