Week 8

Week 8 was a very relatable week for me. Between depression to drug use and addiction along with gambling; I have plenty of family members with some of these conditions to be able to know how they work. With depression, both my mother’s adoptive and birth suffer from severe depression. I am more aware of my adopted mother’s depression than my birth mothers though because I have much more contact with her. She had been on numerous medications but it seems like her depression might actually be getting worse. I don’t think she has thought of suicide but I have never asked her. I don’t think she has attempted it though. I hope thought that someday it might go away because she can get very emotional very easily.

As with drugs and gambling both of my birth parents had many problems with these. My mother was involved very much in drugs during the time I was conceived and my father definitely had a gambling problem along with schizophrenia.

Although I do drink; and sometimes a lot, I feel I do not have a drinking problem. I go sometimes a moth or 2 without drinking, and I never feel the need for a drink when I stop drinking. It sometimes worries me though because my dad did drink a lot, and sometimes these things are genetic. Also with the discussion in class about how if you drink way too much and finally your body can’t take anymore, somewhat scares me, because I do not ever want permanent damage to my body.

Overall week 8 was quite interesting and the it seems like I have a decent amount of content for my final tapestry.

Week 7

Week 7 was all about problems in the brain, at least from my point of view. We learned about phobias and schizophrenia. I have never really had any phobias much during my life other than being afraid of monsters and the dark when I was younger but that is more of a childhood thing. On the other hand schizophrenia definitely caught my attention.

My father had schizophrenia; although I have no idea what type he definitely had problems with certain parts of his brain. I remember a story of him not paying at Eat’n Park because he thought he was Jesus and did not have to pay.

In class we learned different types of schizophrenia and what they entail. I thought the one that is most scary would be either tactile or visual even though the auditory seems to be the worst from studies. I find it would drive me insane to feel like things were crawling on my skin or to see things that were not really there.

I hope that schizophrenia is something more that one develops than is hereditary because I would really rather not have any type of schizophrenia. As the teacher said don’t think that I am going to have it because sometimes it can actually increase of odds of getting it.

Definitely looking forward to the next 2 weeks since they seem to include a lot of interesting topics including alcohol, gambling and adhd.

Week 6

Week 6 was a fun yet interesting week due to the fact we were learning about advertising. Although we did learn about group mechanics, I had much more interest with the advertising. We learned about the variety parts of advertising that relate to psychology. One of the most important things I feel advertising does is relates to lifestyles. It sometimes even makes people want to change their lifestyle to fit in with a certain brand. One thing this that this was really noticeable in was cigarette adds. Even though I’m not a smoker myself I find it interesting how these ads are directed at different types of people. For a while these ads were making millions until they were banned from television in the us permanently because they were getting younger people’s attention.

We all split into groups and all found a commercial to explain to the class, which I thought was a great way to interpret the commercials and how they relate to psychology. The initial commercial I thought of was the old spice commercials, but I overheard that one of the other groups was going to do it. It actually ended up two groups doing that brand and 2 separate commercials. Our group ended up doing an Xbox 360 Commercial which I thought actually did not represent the brand very well even though it was a captivating commercial. I felt that it did not brand the image of Xbox in one’s head yet just be an overall fun and interesting commercial.

I learned some and reinforced a lot of what I know about what’s behind advertising and I feel it was an overall interesting week. I look forward to see what the group project has in store for me.

Week 4 Psychology

Week 4 I feel has been the most interesting week in the psychology class to date. Week 4 was about the brain again, but more about senses, She told us that there were 7 senses and said she would tell us the 2 we didn’t know and they ended up being proprioception and the vestibular sense. Maybe ill look into them more another time; since ometimes I feel my properceptive sense may be a bit off, I like to bump into things but that may be just because I am a big guy.

One thing we talked about was the trinity of the human brain; the idd, ego, and super ego. The idd which is the uncouncious part; I want what I want when I want it, reminds me a lot about myself. And somewhat deals with being impulsive. Something that I need to work on is waiting a second before I say things after listening to someone. A lot of times I will just spurt something out.

We talked about a lot of things relating to the left and right brain, and I found out that I am mostly right brained which was somewhat interesting.

The teacher talked about how an enviorment can psycially change the brain which to me seems like a really bad thing. One thing that was mentioned was that ritilin affects the development of the brain and I know I was on that for a while as a child.But hopefully it didn’t impact my brain all that much.

We did an interesting thing on learning. We answered a bunch of questions on visual auditory and kinesthectic learning. I found out that auditory was my highest yetI feel that kinesthetic should be because I love doing things instead of hearing about them.

We watched an interesting clip on Ben underwood who learned to see with sound which to me kind of sounds like how dolphins see. It was a shame to find out that he died though.

Overall It was a very filled week of knowledge, should be interesting to see what peoples midterm projects are next week.

week 3

Week 3 was an interesting week because I had my class split up due to previous engagements. What was even more interesting was that I had 2 different teachers during these 2 days.

Week 3 was primarily about stress and what cause it along with how to prevent it and how to cope with it. I find stress can really cause a toll on me when it gets bad. I end up taking it out on other people and I definitely don’t operate at 100%. I find myself getting stressed sometimes with school, especially when I have a big project coming up or quiz. I usually do things at the last second which is my weakness and this usually leads to long and stressful nights. I think an easy way to fix this would be to work on projects a little bit every day or every other day. That would definitely help to relieve stress.

In class the teacher discusses stress relieving techniques, one of them being deep breathing which I find myself rarely doing but the other was music which I do use. I used to never listen to music but soon after high school I found myself listening to it a lot more; maybe because life after high school was more stressful? A lot of times I listen to music while I work on school work, which I think helps me work more efficiently and prevent a stressful situation. I also find that exercising regularly helps reduce overall stress.

The teacher mentioned 2 things that caught my attention; one is someone always being negative and the other is having a hard time saying no to people. These two things are easily 2 heavy stressors.

I think if I could overcome these two things that I would have a much overall better time in life. I think the negative part comes from my father, mainly biological in my opinion but who knows. As for never saying no, I think that comes from my adoptive family teaching me manners and being nice. I seem to never want to have confrontation. But sometimes it is a good thing to say no.

The second part of week 3 was interesting and I think the sub teacher was a very good lecturer and kept my attention very well. Week 3.5 was about how we perceive reality and how perception is always the end result of a complex process of selection and interpretation. I thought it was interesting how we have filters that reduce the sensory stimuli so that we don’t have to interpret everything that happens around us; Sort of like in one ear out the other.

Overall an interesting lecture and look forward to next week’s where we learn more about the brain.

Week 2

To me it seemed like week 2's lesson was packed with a lot more information than last weeks. This week I decided to take notes to help me with my weekly blog and also to help me remember things. I felt that a lot of the reading helped with the understanding of the lesson this week, but also some of it was not covered. Supposedly we were supposed to read certain sections I guess, but I just read the whole chapter.

We did one group assignment which was on the Dobuans, I thought this was going to be an interesting assignment, until no one said a single word till I did, and even after I spoke, which was 10 minutes later, me and one other person participated in the discussion. I somewhat which I had gotten more vocal group member for that assignment.

Between taking notes from the reading and from class there were a few things that caught my interest. One thing that I grasped somewhat onto was the section in the book about experimentation. I like all the parts that are involved with experimentation and the terms that are used. I knew some of them previously but I also learned a lot more. During class the teacher told us about the Stanley Milgram study which especially caught my attention. I guess I am a sucker for drama related stories in a way. I had seen this recreated on nbc, on something. Like how far would you go. And it surprises me how far some people really do go even when the feedback from the victim is bad.

In class we discussed a fair amount about ethics which even included part of our additional homework. In class the teacher had us read some stories on what we would do, The main one was if two houses were on fire one with the neighbors and one with my family which one would I save. To me the obvious answer was save your own family, even if I was a firefighter I would have still done the same thing. I don’t understand how it would work any other way.

We learned about morals values and virtues along with social responsibility which are all important in anyone’s daily life in my opinion. On somewhat of an opposite side we also learned about the goals of misbehabiorm which include attention power revenge and display of inadequacy.

We were asked to include some information about scripts we live by and this brought a lot of thought into my head; before I decided to think much more about this, class was over and I made my way to the elevator; I made sure I had my Id in my wallet before getting on the elevator but it was not in my wallet so I had to go back to class and look for it. I explained to the teacher how I always lose stuff no matter what, and she said to me that this is a script I live by. Although I am not 100% sure about that it sure is something I do often. I always hate when I love things and try to keep a closer eye on things so I actually don’t lose them. But if it is a script I live by, is it possible to change this script permanently?

I have a lot of scripts I live by, some good and some bad. One script that I seem to live by is making people laugh and being very open about my life and past. When I start talking to people, I sometimes say “To Much” as some would say, even though there are people who find this a positive trait. I love how people find me funny, especially at family parties and such. I used to not be like that but it seems as I grew this was a trait that I discovered in college. I am not a practically social person so It is a weird quality trait for me to have but am glad to have it.

A lot more than what I had mentioned was covered in class but If I were to cover it all this might as well be an essay; but since it is not, I will end for this week and leave more writing for next week.

Week 1, The Basics

Week one of psychology was an interesting one. I came into this class with expectations to learn about my brain and how it works. My fiancé is in psychology, so I knew the topic had to be somewhat interesting.

I am not very good with lecture classes, so initially I felt the class was going to be somewhat boring for me. Our teacher helped my opinion sway away from that somewhat though with some group time.

There was a lot of terminology thrown around; some of it stuck while some of it did not. There was a decent amount that stuck with me though. One of the things the teacher discusses early on was the reason why we doing things. And the main reason we do things is because of reward. This was an interesting one for me because I really only do things if I can get some sort of benefit from it. I often do things for my fiancé or family though just to do it because it’s them, but if someone else asked such a thing from me I would probably find a reason to not do it. The teacher asked me to think what I got in return; my conclusion was their love in return.

I feel the reason this may be is because when I was younger I had to take care of my parents sometimes because of being homeless and or the constant fighting between them. I remember one time I kept my mother from throwing a lamp at my father. No one ever asked me to do these things, nor was I rewarded in my mind for them.

I found the whole thing about how certain things are measurable to be interesting. I remember times I would have to babysit my brother and he would always get upset because my mom wasn’t home, and that the intensity and duration would be quite long; it was very hard to settle him down.

Finally hearing about nature vs nurture is quite interesting for me. The teacher gave an example about a child in an orphanage, and how it would be the only one not sick because at night the cleaning lady would pick it up and give it attention. Nature vs nurture is an interesting concept and I hope to learn more about it.

There were a lot of things I learned week one, but there were also a lot of things that went in one ear and out the other. Next class I plan on trying to pay attention more so that I can have more to write about.