6165. Keep Moving Forward

As our core classes draw to a close I am sad to leave the people I’ve come to know. I looked forward to reading blog and discussion posts. It’s like making friends in the cyber world. I rely on my classmates to help me understand what we are talking about. I need the many perspectives to help me see beyond my own world.

Walt Disney taught me a wonderful lesson. There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow Shining at the end of every day. All of our tomorrows are beautiful. We rock.

Thank you for being a partner on this mad journey. 

6165 - You won't understand. It's a camp thing.

Once Upon a Time I was in high school. During this phase of my life I had some wonderful adjourning experiences. 

Every summer I would go to Tri Cities Workcamp in Petersburg, Virginia with my church. TCW is a camp where high schoolers from all over the East Coast come and we gather to fix up homes for those living in poverty. So the first day of camp we play all kinds of games and do lots of silly things to loosen us all up and get to know one another. Then we are divided up into crews. You spend almost all of the week with your crew. Obviously the crews bond like crazy over the week. So the last day of camp once the work is done and we return to base the rest of the night is reserved for adjourning. We gather in our crews and do affirmations. This is when everyone in the crew goes around the group and says positive things about one another. A gift they bring, what they like about a person, a specific memory…anything that will make the other person feel loved.  There is usually crying and hugging involved.

Another thing about TCW is throughout the week we write “care cards”. On the first day of camp every camper gets an envelope to decorate with their name and crew number. Those envelopes are then taped to a wall in the dining hall – like a giant mail wall. Anyways all week long people write these little notes to one another and on the last day of camp we are allowed to take our envelopes home.  This is one of the best things. We get to read all the notes people have given to us. It’s wonderful. 

I remember learning about the “termination process” in college when I was studying social work. To this day I think that is an awful phrase.  But the point is – the end of a process is important and needs to be given special attention. You recap all you've done and make a future plan.  Maybe a better name would be something more positive sounding like – future process, or the Yellow Brick Road process – something that doesn’t sound like a killing machine. 

6165 - War. Uh. What it is good for? Absolutely Nothing.

In 25 years of life I have been involved in conflict.  In some way. More often than I not I try to be as small as possible so I will not be dragged into conflict. I’m an escapist to the core (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012). I realisize this is an unproductive way to be. Allow me to refer you to yet another Harry Potter quote, “Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it” (Rowling, 2000).  So I know it is better to deal with conflict as it happens but still this is not my instinct.

Working on this week’s assignment it took a lot of thinking and help for me to come up with a solution. My imaginary world self wanted to just kick Mr. Little and his gang out of town and say, “Go use another library”! But alas that would not be real life. In the end my friend helped me see compromise. Then I had to convince myself that this was not catering to Mr. Little’s backward thinking. I am good at finding the compromise in other people’s conflicts but not my own. Anyways….

This week I reflected on my work related conflicts. I started thinking that when I had to engage with the admin I wanted to come across as both, sweet and confident. Like I wanted to feel like I was “equals” with them but I also wanted them to see me as someone to take care of.  I’m a pretty self aware person. I would talk about myself to explain my thoughts etc. and sometimes it would lead to trouble. I guess I’m not good at working with those higher up than me. Hopefully I will be better in my next job. [not gonna lie – I am dreading the future job hunt]

Ok so strategies…this is hard because I often block out past conflicts so I even though I know I’ve had them and strategies, recalling them is harder than I expected. Allright one thing I like to do is have a mediated meeting.  So many times people twist words or misunderstand or get super emotional and it disrupts the process of problem solving. I like mediators because they are an objective witness.  I also like to write things down ahead of time. I was thinking recently about how this action may come off as cowardly. [ you know, every one communicates differently] But I think its good because it keeps the angry passion away. It keeps me from straying off point. It helps me stay calm because I am not under pressure having to come up with thoughts on the spot. I wish more people took time to write down their thoughts and reasons when coming to a meeting.  

As I mentioned I am terrible at conflict. I enjoyed this week because it forced me out of my comfort zone and to think about how can I integrate what I am learning into my regular life.