双流机场

手机欠费害得连机场wifi都没法用，真窝囊。哎。还得赶快跟家里人和东风报平安呐，不然他们会穷担心。咋办捏？找住宿？可是又没意思，在这儿等上3钟头就去搭机场专线进城。所以还是让他们等等吧。这手机还真不能没话费啊。

Response to Classroom Strategies

In response to Tannen’s article, through discussion I found that her weave of arguments, use of supporting evidence and her choice of tone most noteworthy, apart from the content itself.

I was reminded back when we were taught essay writing, where the importance of tone and choice of words were repeatedly stressed. Every paragraph must contain thesis statements and supporting evidence, along with explanation. And we were taught a myriad of acronyms to remember them. The drone killed the fun in writing and the countless essays that we churn out killed the joy in reading them as well.

However, Tannen has applied everything we used were taught, but instead of the same monotonous paper, it is different. She presented her arguments to her intended audience from a softer and less intimidating position using a less formal tone for easier acceptance. As discussed, teachers who have taught for years will most likely find a direct accusation of their teaching methods a slap across the face. By posing it as a discussion, like “Hey I observed that this happens to my classes…”, makes it seem more inviting as compared to “Your teaching methods are wrong…”. An article serves its purpose only when it is read, Tannen has gone an extra mile, almost as if opening a park on free admission, her visitors need not pay any emotional toll.

Furthermore, Tannen’s purpose of seems to be to raise awareness in the teaching audience that such a problem exists. She did not offer solutions to the problem, because it would be too audacious and will definitely be challenged. All she wanted was to plant that idea, to highlight the existence. With that, I think her article has served its purpose well.

Content-wise, I find that her arguments are a little too generalizing, making it seem that difference in gender communication is the main element that hinders effective classroom participation. In today’s context, especially in higher education, this disadvantage to the females being more reserved is increasingly less prominent, due to a myriad of reasons, feminism, globalisation…etc. Moreover, just as Tannen mentioned, it is often the fastest student who could formulate the answer who gets noticed, this is not a gender attribute, but this observation is more universal in all classrooms. At other times, it could also be that students are just apathetic about the topics discussed, or they did not prepare beforehand therefore they have no input. This is from my point of view as a student, and from what I observed girls talk as much as guys, and there are guys who don’t speak up as well. I do think that Tannen could attribute the problem difference in personalities instead of gender.

A little more sharing

http://www.sodahead.com/living/are-women-becoming-more-successful-than-men/question-1115547/

hey guys, check out this webpage, it’s a post on observations that women are becoming more successful than men. What i found interesting is not the post itself, but the comments that follows. Comment war between men and women for who’s the stronger sex.

A video to share

well, I’m sharing this just for laughs, I found this ad really quite funny, and I like that little twist at the end.

Can’t we talk???

With respect to the article, “Can’t we talk???”:

Yes, we sure can talk, however it’s different thing altogether to communicate. From what I observe, our actions and words are backed by lots of complex thought processes which form our intention, for example when the wife asked her husband whether he’d like to stop for coffee, her intention probably was ideally both of them wanted coffee so they could happily get a coffee each, or even if he doesn’t want a coffee he would wonder whether she wanted coffee and ask for her preference. No matter how right or wrong our words come out, the intention is there. Despite the different approach men and women take to express themselves, their basic intentions couldn’t be too far apart, we are essentially still primitive humans. However this intention could be lost to miscommunication, misreading or crude prejudice, giving us waves of bad emotions, as demonstrated by the wife in Tannen’s article, she fumes when her “intentioned” preference was ignored.

Tannen’s many interesting anecdotes all have one thing in common, the couples misunderstood each other, they failed to catch the real intention! It may be easier said than done (I’m gonna say it anyway). Once we are able to grasp the intention, there is basically no worries for miscommunication. Categories or no categories, men and women are hardwired differently, that’s why it’s “men and women”, not “men and men” or “women and women”. Even women and women could miscommunicate, despite the fact they can talk on and on, nonstop. Therefore, intention is thee important thing to take note.

In a mutual relationship, the two people should at least be on the same frequencies to be able to understand each other. In an intimate relationship, they should be able to read each other’s thought pattern, speaking each other’s minds, do something before the person asks…..that is the chemistry an intimate couple should have (ideally). Once this chemistry is there, there isn’t even a need to verbally communicate anymore, just brainwaves would be more than enough, this might just be what we say ‘two become one’?

That level of intimacy is very likely to be difficult to attain, so we laymen and women still end up in heated whirlpools and meaningless quarrels. From a ‘man-ish’ POV, this poses as a challenge, therefore I offer my solution, which is: the more we fail at communicating, the more we do it, until we stop failing :) yay. From the ‘women-ish’ POV then, I come from the need for support, sympathy, intimacy, feelings and understanding, i would probably try communicating in another form, singing is good. Guess we will just have to trial and err until we come to an equilibrium.

Lastly, the most important step IMO, is to try clarify and unknot the miscommunication or misunderstanding instead of just sit and watch it screw up your relationship. Sometimes you may need to apologize, even when you think that you did absolutely nothing wrong. Well, ‘humility’ owns ‘ego’ hands down, plus “Sorry” is just a 2 syllable word, if it could make a relationship work, why not?