Lying

It seems to happen quite often that someone will lie to someone about something. It might happen quite a bit but I do not know if the lying person knows it or not, but it is very obvious when they are lying. There is a couple of ways that you will be able to tell if they are lying to you or not and some of the ways are that they will start talking faster, their voice will change in pitch, won't look you in the eye when you are talking to them or asking a question and they might stumble plover their words because they are trying to form the lie in their head. It just so happens that some point in everyones life they will have someone come up to them and lie, they might want to look for these signs or if they know the person well enough they can just automatically tell that they are lying because they are not acting the same as usual.

Group

We have been meeting together with our groups for a while now. It is surprisingly hard to have group meetings, personally I have been to all of the meetings, but no matter how far in advance we let the group know about the meetings there is always one person that does not show up. I am not complaining about this by any means, because when we do meat we get the project done and everyone has something for the group to offer and the communication is not too shabby. We are done with our project now and just need to work on the ratings and the group structure, then Give the speech which hopefully will go better than the past individual speeches that I have had.

Communication in social media

I was looking on facebook and as usual people are chatting it up amongst each other, with all of the youth computer lingo and the LOLing. Happy go lucky people and the sad and depressed people. The thing that really bothers me about social communication and online communication is that instead of talking face to face with people, people are talking online and their social skills are suffering from this. To add to my hatred of social network are the people who have comments that are negatively possitioned toward others, if they do not like them then they probably wont have them as a friend in the first place. This is just a opinion that I have of social networks such as facebook and how foolish people are when communicating with each other, but say some things that in person they would never say to someone else.

Problems with memorizing speeches

My last speech an informative speech was over how to make barbecue sauce the way my grandma used to make it a long time ago.  I tried to memorize what I was going to say about my speech, such as the place barbecue sauce originated from, the different variations in different parts of the United States and other such information that would of helped my speech.  When I got up there it came out different and I forgot just about all that I was going to say about my topic.  It started out alright, but then when it came to the actual information I forgot everything that I tried to memorize and there was long pauses in my speech every couple of words because I forgot what I tried to memorize.  All I got to say is next time I give a speech my visual aids are going to be a PowerPoint, that way I can have pretty much exactly what I'm going to say to the class, and maybe not have long pauses and sound more confident.

Non-verbal actions

I was watching the History Channel a couple of days ago and it talked about people in our history and what non-verbal actions certain presidents and political figures did while giving speeches.  The one that stayed in my mind was when they were talking about Richard Nixon.  They said that to be effective in judging if people are acting out of the ordinary it is better to study them and see what it is that these people would consider normal non-verbal actions for the president.  The part that they showed was when Nixon was answering questions from reporters regarding the Watergate Scandal.  In this the reporter asked Nixon a question and
Nixon put his hands behind his back as if he was open for questions and suggestions, but then on further review they saw that he was also rubbing his hand with the other, this the communication experts said was him comforting himself or reassuring himself to the questions.  The next part of this show that stuck out in my mind was when they said that many of political people were coached in nonverbal responses.  This part showed Hillary Clinton giving a speech and after she was done and the crowd was cheering she pointed into random parts of the crowd, and even though she did not know anyone in the crowd where she was pointed and saying "thank you," it made the crowd feel like she was talking right to them because they did not know who exactly she was talking to.  These examples were just the one that stuck out in my mind the most because I  thought it was very interesting and I learned quite a bit from these especially that the political people were so coached on nonverbal and verbal responses.

Poor communication skills

One of my professors at the college that I am currently attending has by far the worst communication and public speaking skills I have ever heard.  This particular professor is my math teacher, which I really do not like math and would prefer not to be there.  This teacher will stand in front of the class and instantly when he gets up there his face turns as red as a tomato, then he goes on to say um and uhh several times before he starts sounding something like this "umm uhh ummm ok uh today um the uh lesson is uh umm about uuuhhhhhhhh probability umm." This goes on for the whole class period and really is hard to listen to for an hour and twenty minutes.  Originally I thought that he had a really bad fear of public speaking and being in front of a room full of people, but after trying to talk to him after a test right before spring break he showed me that his communication skills are very minimal communication skills even from one person to another. 

Chapter 4 Listening

In communications 104, we were told to find times when something in our environment distracted us with seven different terms to talk about.  The terms were environmental distraction, medium distraction, source distraction, factual diversion, semantic diversion, content listening and selective listening.  So here are a few times in my past that these have played a role in my listening or not listening. 
The first one, environmental listening happens very often as a matter of fact, such as when I am in the car with my brother or someone else they like to have the music up way to loud and try to ask me questions and I don't even hear half of what they're saying so I just nod my head and agree with them, (I'm sure what they have to say is not important).  The next is medium distraction, this distraction does not happen very often to me but when it does the mobile phone I am on cuts in and out every couple of sentences and I am often able to piece the phrases together and make a complete sentence of what I believe they just said.  Then there is source diversion, this happens to me when I am talking to someone that mumbles or that talks quietly I do not hear the message clearly from the source.  Factual diversion happens when I am told a super long and boring joke and am focused on the joke ending and when it does I missed the main part.  Semantic diversion is when someone says a word that catches my attention positively or negatively.  Content Listening is when you focus on the content level of meaning, or literal meaning rather than the social or relational level of meaning.  Lastly there is the selective listening, this one can be summarized by just saying my grandpa he is the most selective listener I have ever been around if you are talking about something he doesn't like to him he doesn't hear you, but when you start talking about interesting things he knows about he definitely hears you.  These are all seven of the terms best summarized how they relate to my life for the most part.

Non-Verbal

Today in speech class we were shown examples of non-verbal communication through the show Britain's got Talent.  On this show Susan Boyle was up and right from the get go you could see the reaction to her from everyone in the crowd of surprise and thinking there is no way that this 47 year old could be even remotely good.  This was based on a preconception that because she was not young and good looking that she also would not be able to carry a tune.  From Simon, and Pierce rolling their eyes to the audience doing basically the same with their arms crossed showing they were not open to what she had to offer.  The girl judge however was open to what she had to offer with her arms behind her head symbolizing that she was willing to listen.  Once Susan began singing you could just see everyones jaw drop in surprise at her beautiful voice and people clapping praising her for this remarkable performance.

Talking in High Code

1."Summer jobs are good to have."
Talking in high code this sentence would be something similar to "Having a payed occupation during the summer months is an excellent way to make extra money, meet new people, and get a new job experience that will help you in the future, to achieve what your goals are both short term and long term."
2. "Cold weather is horrible."
Talking in high code this sentence would be something similar to "The weather in the winter months are bone chillingly cold, with temperatures sometimes getting bellow zero, where even a coat is not even enough to keep warm."

Driving in St. Joseph

This last weekend, my brother and I were on the Belt Highway driving along, when suddenly we missed our turn.  So we went up to the next store and turned around using their parking lot.  On the way back to the turn that we missed, my brother driving, we were in the turning lane a little to early before our turn and ended up being right in front of an angry motorist.  This motorist who I suppose had the right to be angry with us and displayed it with a non-verbal display of communication, which just so happened to be her flipping us the bird.  By bird, as we discussed in Dr. Capps class I do not mean an airplane, a lady in England, or the flying type of bird, this bird was the type of bird that just so happened to be connected to the hand and was the middle finger, and her facial expressions told us that she was pretty angry.