Victims and Creators

My Student Success book teaches us about people who are Victims and Creators. This is similar to Stephen Covey's Proactive and Reactive people. Victims tend to keep doing what they are doing whether it works or not. They blame outside forces and or are heavily influenced by them. Creators change beliefs and behaviors to create solutions. They also take responsibility for there actions and such.
The reason for my intro was to bring about this incident at my work place. At my work we have crews of people who work for different supervisors in different trades. Trading of workers does happen from time to time if someone switches a job(sometimes against there will). Our crew short on people many months ago took on some new members several months ago. One such member came from another crew who was interested in our trade and seemed like a good worker. Also it was well known he didn't get along with his last boss. Over the past several months there have been several incidents involving him and other crew members. Not always his fault but he was in the thick of it. Well just this night while leaving for work he shouts over to me and my friend who were headed for out cars "You guys got me switched back to so and so's (back to his old boss) department next week." Blaming us for his departure from our crew. We had ourselves little if any decision or impact on his leaving. I just thought this illustrated the Victim persona so well.
How often do we our selves blame others for our misfortune, rather than looking into ourselves for our own responsibility? This class and book has made me see the difference in my own thinking and seeing it others.

Been awhile

Since I've been around here. Been busy with other things I guess. I've been working a lot at my PC repair blog. As far as school news has been I've been doing pretty good. I gave my last speech last week for Oral Communications. Mine was a speech of persuasion to read Stephen Covey's book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It went ok. My time was a little short and there were a few things like actually using the blackboard for visuals. Not sure what I was thinking not using visuals it may have helped my time issues. It also didn't help that I had changed the subject at the last minute. Oh well. Got my final test next week. My other class Student Success I've got to finish up my final essay this week and that will be last of that one. I wonder what next semesters classes will be?

Speech results

Well I got my grade back from last weeks (oil change) speech and I was surprised to get an A-. I couldn't believe it. This was despite being a bit short in length and failing to mention my sources. Otherwise I did pretty well. I've got some other items to work on too but it was a huge boost to my self confidence to do well on that one. Made my day.

Veteran's Day

I'm a veteran myself(peacetime U.S. Army) and I have relatives who served in Vietnam and now have cousins who served (maybe serving) in the current conflict. I can't help be touched by the stories of sacrifice veteran's have made. If you have a chance this weekend no matter how you feel about our current situation. Thank a Veteran. It's the least you can do and that's all many ask. What sparked me to write this was this story. I hope you read it. Thank You and God Bless America!

Update

This week I did my presentation on an oil change in my public speaking course. I think I did Ok. I was glad to get it over with. I have such anxiety about public speaking that in consumes me days ahead of time. It's such a relief when it's over. Glad there is only one more to go for this semester.

My other class (Student Success) we discussed things from our text book. We covered stuff like the scripts we tend live by. It's that little voice in your head that tells you what to do, not to do,how to behave, your values and beliefs. Well I think you may get the picture.This course really does make you think about yourself and how to become more self aware. Like actors(or actresses) scripts tell them what to say or do in a performance. We do that in our everyday lives. The script has been written by your past experiences. It's quite deep if you really think about it. The course text(On Course by Skip Downing) follows closely with Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I'm still reading it and I still highly recommend it. Well that's all for now. Thanks for reading this boring blog. Come back again if you like.

This weeks update

Oral Communications: This week we covered items from our textbook. Covered was presentation aids and such. We are in preparation for our demonstration speeches next week. My homework is continue to develop, practice it.
Student Success: We have the resume project that's an ongoing project due at the end of the month. Plus we got two short essays and a journal assignment due next week.

In a funk

I'd have to admit lately I've been in a funk lately as far as school work goes. After getting some decent grades around midterm last week I've been lazy about school work. I have managed to work out my oil change outline for my speech and I've got a resume to start for my other class.