Week 2 - Post 3

            A concept that caught my eye from this week’s assigned reading was from chapter one. The inevitability of conflict, or that conflict is a fact of life, really interested me. An example that the authors used was about “roommate” problems with a husband. It made me think back to my freshmen year here at SJSU with my roommate. We never actually had an argument, but there was definitely some difficulty getting used to the way each of us lived. Even now, I live in my sorority house with 48 other women where we switch rooms/roommates every semester. Each semester we need to adjust to each other, which can occasionally cause conflict with small chores and such. There will always be conflict in peoples’ lives caused simply by small annoyances and pet peeves that we have. As the textbook states, the closer you are with a person, the more conflicts occur, the more small problems become larger problems, and the more intense your feelings are. It’s difficult to avoid conflict, but there are definitely routes around it. 

Week 2 - Post 2

            I am a very stubborn person and would rather not have change, so I usually take a non-process view of relationships rather than communication or conflict. I tend to see people as unchanging. For example, if I see someone being extremely rude to another person, I will automatically assume that they typically rude to people, even if they are just teasing. I just decide that that is just their personality and if I do not like it, I won’t surround myself with the person. Although it would take a while for me to learn how to change my thinking, I think that it would take time for me to be able to give multiple chances out to others so I could better understand them. Non-process views are very pessimistic ways of thinking but I think that with practice, I would be able to see people as changing as opposed to unchanging. 

Week 2 - Post 1

            I definitely think that humans have an instinct for conflict. Although humans may not instinctively know how to solve a conflict, I believe that you can sense when a problem has risen. For example, if you over hear a conversation in a language you don’t understand, you would be able to tell if an argument is going to arise by a person’s tone of voice and the manner that they say it. I also think that the instinct for conflict is an inborn trait. Another example is if a baby hears their parents yelling at each other in a heated argument, the baby most likely will not be laughing and smiling because they can sense that there is something wrong. I don’t think that this ability makes us any more or less human. I think of it as a normal trait, because it is similar to sensing other peoples’ emotions. I do think it is a valuable asset because being able to sense when a conflict will arise gives people the opportunity to prepare themselves and possibly fix the problem before it escalates. 

Week 1 Introduction

Hi! I’m Kim Calisesi and I am a senior here at San Jose State. I am planning on graduating in the spring with a degree in Communication, of course. :) I’m from about an hour northeast of San Jose, but luckily I live near campus so I do not have to commute. I am in a sorority on campus, where I hold the position of Director of Scholarship, so I am in charge of the academic portion of my sorority. It is a time-consuming position to uphold but it is has definitely been paying off. I love having downtime to just hang out with my friends and family.

 I took my first communication class during the second semester of my freshmen year and I loved it, so I ended up taking two more communication classes and decided to declare it as my major. Although I’m not exactly sure what I want as my career path, I have loved and enjoyed every communication class I’ve taken. My goal for this class is to gain a greater understanding of how communication affects conflict and what we can do to prevent most conflict. I hope to be more knowledgeable about this aspect of communication once this class has ended.