Close Relationships Essay Example for Free

Close Relationships Essay I never have been a very good communicator, be it family, friends or strangers. After reading the article â€Å"Close Relationships Sometimes Mask Poor Communication† it really hit home for me. My husband and I have poor communication skills. We have been together for the past six years, and we still have a problem commutating. He likes to take over the conversation, or cut me off when we are talking. I feel at times that he is talking at , not to me, or he is making me feel like I don’t have a clue on what it going on. He has at times actually told me that I just don’t know as much as he does, therefore his ideas and suggestions should be followed, and not questioned. This has honestly caused a huge amount of arguments and constant disagreements. My lifestyle is so busy I communicate and think very quickly and a lot of the time I guess I expect people to know what I mean without fully explaining it. In my observation over time, people seem to communicate better with strangers than they do with family members. I feel that when communicating with strangers one tends to give more detail, because you never know how a stranger will understand what you are trying to communicate. People commonly believe that they communicate better with close friends than with strangers. That closeness can lead people to overestimate how well they communicate, a phenomenon we term the closeness-communication bias, (Keysar, 2011) I found this sentence very interesting. A wife who says to her husband, its getting hot in here, as a hint for her husband to turn up the air conditioning a notch, may be surprised when he interprets her statement as a coy, amorous advance instead, (Savitsky 2011). It has become very clear to me that even though I may communicate something to my husband, at times when he doesn’t seem to understand, I get frustrated, I plan to try a lot of the communication tools I have learned in this class to try and help clean up my communications with my friends, family and co-workers. Our problem in communicating with riends and spouses is that we have an illusion of insight. Getting close to someone appears to create the illusion of understanding more than actual understanding, (Epley, 2011). I actually had this situation happen to me last weekend. My husband and I were working in the yard, he was fixing a sprinkler wire, and I was replacing sprinkler heads and drip lines. We were both doing our own things while still working in the yard. I thought everything was going great, then out of now where, my husband says, that I don’t appreciate the effort he is putting into helping â€Å"Me† in the yard. I was completely blown away. I said in a defensive tone, that I didn’t know I had to tell him thank you every time he does stuff around the house. I went on to say that it is his house to, so why do I always have to thank him, or ask him to do things to help out around the house. I know that I could have handled this situation differently; however it really gets tiresome to always have to tell him I appreciate every single little task that he completes. I had another situation between my husband and myself over the weekend. I was talking with him about hanging up our American flag, I asked him if he knew where my curtain rod went, I explained to him the one I was looking for, he finds this small rod and says that he wanted to use that one, I told him I already had plans for that rod, and the one I was looking for was perfect. He continued to take the rod that I did not want to use and put the flag on it, and they tried to hang it up. He kept telling me to just come and look at it. So after telling him for the 7th time that I didn’t want to use that rod, I went to look at it. It was too small and would not hang correctly, I told him that again, and he got pissed off at me, and told me to never ask him to help me do anything ever again†¦ I was pissed that he wouldn’t listen to me; it is always his way or no way. When this happens, it is very easy to become angry with my spouse because we expected them to understand what we meant or said, to listen and try to understand. As couples, we want to believe that we are on the same page all the time because we are so close. Whether we are face to face, back to back, in another room, or on the phone with each other, misunderstandings can and will happen without further questioning from the other spouse. When something is said, it is the other spouse’s responsibility to make sure they are clear in what they are hearing. Without this tactic, there will be misinterpretations between the spouses. This creates unhealthy communication between the spouses. My spouse it not a good family man, he prefers to do what he wants, when he want too. This tends to be a huge problem for our relationship. When my spouse gets mad at me for not listening to him, he starts making threats, like I mentioned earlier, don’t ever ask him to help again, etc So, I stop including him in those things, then he starts going through all kinds of changes because of it. He would say, I support you in anything you do. Then he would vent like crazy about our life not being the same anymore. Your self-image, in turn, results in your level of self-esteem, the beliefs and feelings you have about yourself. Self-esteem has two primary components: a sense of self-efficacy or your personal effectiveness and a sense of your personal worth and self-respect. However, your self-concept, self-image, and self-esteem are not destiny. You can also enhance your self-esteem through affirmations and positive self-talk, (Sole, 2011). You can build your self-image and your self-esteem by successful experiences. Your successes create self-confidence, which enables you to take on new challenges and continue to increase your self-esteem in an upward spiral of success. It is critical that one learns to communicate accurately; it will help all your relationships become stronger and be successful.

Themes Presented In Far From The Madding Crowd Essay -- English Litera

Themes Presented In Far From The Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy was born on 2nd June 1840 in Higher Bockampton, Dorset. His father was a builder and mason and his mother a former servant was a well read intelligent woman with a strong personality. Hardy was impressionable from a young age and as a country boy was surrounded by the traditional aspects of rural life with it's superstitions, folk lore, culture and past times. In 1856 Hardy worked with an architect and continued his studies under the guidance of a parish rector. This friendship has been thought to affect to the tone of "Far From The Madding Crowd". The book was published in 1874 and is one of his most well-known novels. His unique style is never more apparent in this novel with the focus on relationships in a rural community. In this essay I will be discussing the power of love as it is portrayed in "Far From The Madding Crowd". I will be discussing different aspects of love and themes which affect the key theme love in the novel. These themes include character and developement, atmosphere, language and authorial intrusions. From the start of the novel it is noted that Bathsheba is a very vain and unconventional character. Right from the start while on horseback she proved this. "A small swing looking glass was disclosed, in which she proceeded to survey herself attentively. She parted her lips and smiled". It is questioned that Bathsheba's vanity is uncurable and at the end of it all, is it still uncured? She stands out from the world around her because it is ruled by men but she is in charge of the community around her. Bathsheba's love life follows a circular pattern and by the endd she loses strength and stamina and eventually ends up mar... ... of love and the main characters lives revolve around it. Hardy uses many different devices to show the power of love which I have used to show the power of love. Hardy uses peoples characters through the novel to show their feelings and reactions brought on by love. He uses atmosphere throughout the novel to potray the mood and set the scene to help show love in it's different aspects. Hardy uses language also throughout the novel to reflect both the times and the feelings of characters. Hardy also uses authorial intrusions to give opinions of characters through the story. All these topics help show the importance and power of love in "Far From The Madding Crowd". The story takes place in rural part of England at the end of 19th century. Beautiful country and good description of many people peacefully living there are great background for a love story.

Historic tenets of urban planning Essay

The Third World Cities have seen extra- ordinary growth in their urban expansion since 1950. The world 10 most populous cities are located in the third world countries. The urbanization has changed the way of life for the people living there. On one side these megacities have become economic giant for their countries, on other they have also created problems such as disease, congested traffic, pollution and sacristy of resources with a huge gap among haves and have not. As these cities are unplanned and this urbanization is a sudden experience, it is natural for the Third world countries to be surrounded by these surmounting troubles, unless they choose the way out. Historic tenets of urban planning The evidence of urban planning can be found the ancient cultures such as Roman and Greek cities and in ancient cities in India and Egypt as well. The Indus civilization in Pakistan is recognized as the first civilization to have a completely developed urban planning. In 2600 BC, before the arrival of Harapa and Mojodharo, the small towns grew into bigger towns and eventually became cities with thousands of people living in. These people did not have agricultural society as their cities depicts, showing a homogenous culture, however diapered suddenly from the course of history with their cities still intact. These cities are well planned and follow a consistent design, which clearly shows that they were built according to a conscious plan, and is considered the first developed urban plan. Similarly the Romans used to built their cities according to a proper city plan, with military and civil defense and many European cities still appear to follow that pattern. In their plan, the city has a central plaza or market, which is surrounded by streets and walls with short cuts to cut the time short for pedestrians and often the city, has river or stream in the center to provide water and carry sewage out of the city (Crouch, 2003) During the last two hundred years the Western world urban planning has gone through extensive changes in its planning and design. In the industrial age, the control of the city was held by the wealthy few, while the rest of the population lived in slums and sewage. In the 20th century a movement started to change this urban structure and to provide healthy environment to its people. Thus arose the concept of garden city, which were small in size but were basically model towns with few thousand people. In the early 1920s the concept of modern city emerges, such as Paris but they were destroyed during World Wars (Gaffikin, 1999). It was only after WWII that the new cities started to take shape place, however it was not until 1970s, that cheap block construction created an easy and efficient way of creating new buildings. The main objective of the concept of modern planning is to regulate the building activities and set the limits on building and neighborhoods. According to Hopkins (2001) the postmodern planning is composed of the following essential elements: Aesthetics Planning In postmodern urban plans, the most essential element is taking aesthetics more seriously, which meant to add beauty to homes and building. The important aspect of a city planning is zoning, maximizing and managing the use of land and pace of urban development. Safety The houses in modern urban plans are designed to incorporate well with existing municipal services. The cities extreme zones are planned in a way that such dangers can be defused and houses in such areas are equipped with emergency operation and secure evacuation centers. Transport Planning A good urban plan has well developed transport system which cater to the needs of it commuters. Good transport system avoids traffic congestions and effectively carries commuters into different parts of the city without hassle. And automobiles in a city are well suited it meets its requirement, such as spacious roads and parking lanes, which can handle traffic in rush hours. Effective Sub-urban Planning A successful urban plan brings benefit to larger city area by making the towns and urban environment spacious. Planning and the environment In advanced urban or village planning models, taking care of ecology is inevitable. The modern urban planning includes pastures and gardens to keep natural environment consistent with the city.

New ACT Scores Show Troubling Race Dynamic

As the representation of minorities in American public education system grows with every passing year, the situation with higher education, at least according to the latest ACT scores, remains more or less unchanging. Of all the students who took the ACT college admissions test in 2013 only 39% can be considered ready to enter college, which is already a pretty discouraging figure; but for the representatives of minorities this percentage looks even less promising: only 11% of African-American and 18% of Hispanic students meet the requirements presented by the testing company, while 49% of white and 57% of Asian students have passed the test. According to Lee Baker, associate vice provost for undergraduate education at Duke University, this statistic shows that despite all efforts education in the United States is still not equal for everybody. In addition to that, public education is funded by local taxation, while in rich neighborhoods local schools often receive considerable donations from private parties. In addition to that, access to high-quality private schools is available only to the more well-to-do families. Jon Erickson, ACT president, has also expressed his concern over the situation – although in 2013 the composition of ACT test-takers was more diverse than ever before, actual percentage of successes remains more or less the same, even though the participation of minorities grows steadily. It should be taken into consideration that the ACT scores are by definition higher than average performance across American senior students in general, because the test is mostly taken by students who are already going to apply for college and were likely to prepare themselves to this task more or less extensively. The percentage of graduates taking this test, however, grows steadily and saw 18% increase since 2010, which means that higher education keeps getting more desirable, while the actual readiness is lagging behind. On average, the proportion of students who met the ACT benchmarks in all four tested disciplines (English, science, math and reading) increased by about 2% across the nation. What is to be done about this problem? Some, like Georgetown University professor Anthony Carnevale, believe that the criteria presented by the ACT test are too high, and in order to increase the percentage of success we should lower the standards. He calls the public attention to the fact that ACT is, essentially, only a probability statement, it cannot define with complete certainty whether this particular student is or isn’t going to successfully graduate. The representatives of educational system are calling for action, but it is rather hard to understand what measures they consider to be acceptable and how they are going bridge this achievement gap. After all, privileged or unprivileged status is not the only thing one’s racial background comes with. There is also culture, traditions and mentality which, to a very large degree, define how an individual behaves in life. Asian minority, for example, is just as foreign for the United States – so why is it doing so much better than all the others?