Listening tasks

Listening has never been my favourite activity, because I have always preferred reading or looking to the pictures. I think, that the memory type that I have is the visual one and I’m happy for that. Having an ability to remember faces, places that I’m visiting, paintings that I love and the beauty that surrounds me in everyday life do not distact me from the things that I must do. Of course, it becomes a difficulty to remember thing, which are told just once for me, or the facts that I’m hearing for the first time. The best way which I’m using to remember the information, is to listen, to see that person, who is telling it, and to take notes. The only thing that I can do to make my listening tasks more effective is writing down main ideas each time. After listening the podcast once, I read my notes and then I try to listen the speech once again. This technique helps me to remember the main point of speech, to notice the words, that are unfamiliar to me and to concentrate more.
The podcast, that I was listening to, were quite simple and easy understandable. I was choosing them by looking to the title, and downloaded just the most interesting ones.
The first, which I have chosen was just one minute long, so I had to search better. The ones, that were specified for students, who are learning English as a second language, were too easy for me. The speaker was talking too slow, he did not have any accent and the words were quite simple. The second speech was quite good, because after the talk, speaker explained the most difficult words, their meaning and how to use them appropriately.
I think that those texts, of what I was hearing about, are useful when some words are new and you do not know how to spell it. By looking to the text, I can find their meaning in the dictionary.
To my mind, the most useful podcast are those, which are specified for native speakers, and are more difficult than we are used to. I concentrate more to difficult things, than to the tasks, that I consider to be easy.
I’m not saying that I have learned everything and now I need just difficult tasks, I think that the best way of getting better is learning form your mistakes. There is a long way to make my English good enough for serious conversation, and these tasks really helps. Talking with the foreigners who are visiting me in Lithuania is also a good practice, but we are use just casual everyday English, so I think it is not as good as listening news on BBC and using the webpage that our lecture suggested.

Analyzing handwriting

To analyze the person handwriting correctly, we have to look and notice a lot of things, because people have different writing characteristic, called indicators or writing traits.
Most important things are size, slant and base lines, but of course, there are much more of them. For example: if person is writing fast or slow, if he is using a lot of necessary words, different sentence construction.
Size- it shows how much we want to be seen. Making our letters bold it is the same as wearing a red sweather.
Slant of the writing- strong right means impulsive person, needs to relate with others, strong left means that person is a good listener, reserved.
Base lies- person characteristics (optimistic, pessimistic)
There are more questions, like where do we write, how we decide what kind of paper we will be using. Everything depends on our psychology and personality. Everyday we sit right next to our friends and we see, how do they write. Some of them finishes the sentence faster than the others, so they not just write fast, they are also do not write every dictated word. They formulate the main idea and do not waist time by doing unnecessary thing. I think they have a lot of strict plans in their life and these people will reach their goals.
Also there are some people, who are always asking to repeat the sentence, because they missed it. These people have a lot of mess in their life, because distraction made an influence. Of course, it is seen also in their notes- they are crossing a lot, they make more mistakes than the others, so notebooks are messed up.
Psychologist have always paid much less attention to writing than reading, in spite of the fact that writing is as least as important, because if no one wrote anything there would be nothing to read. There were made researches, who showed that writing about stressful experience reduce physical symptoms in patients with chronic illnesses. Also they have found that we can feel 20 different emotions while writing. So every time it is not the same.

Cognition and language

Cognition and language

Summary



Thinking and reasoning
Being able to analyze, recollect or plan our life are abilities that humans can be proud of. Neither of other species can do this, because they are just using their instincts. Psychologists have defined this ability, thinking, as the manipulation of mental representation of information. And what could we do in the world of information, where everything depends on how fast we are in thinking, if we were not able to recognize and understand sounds, words, visual images or other modalities. Visual images are used when we communicate and it is the major part of thinking. It is representation in the mind that resembles the objects or event being represented. Visual images help us when we want to remember our friends, the game we will be playing and it is a good way to improve various skills. Of course, it is valueless without reasoning, which helps us to make up our mind and to make a good choice or decision. For example, we won’t be able to decide what game we want to play, that our body look better… So in this case we count on reasoning. There are several ways, which we can use for making a decision. Using the first way, which is called syllogistic reasoning, we will have to draw a conclusion form a set of assumptions. The second way is called algorithm, and it’s a rule that, if applied appropriately, guarantees a solution to a problem, but it is quite long, so we can use the third one. It is called heuristics, but unlike algorithms, they can not ensure solution.



Problem solving
The process in which we solve a problem typically involves three major steps: preparing to create a solution, producing solutions, and evaluating the solutions that have been generated. Everything goes so fast, that sometimes we do not even notice, what does it take to solve our daily life problem, especially we spend less time in preparation stage. But if the problem is an ill- defined, it will take more time, because not only the specific nature of the problem is unclear, the information required to solve the problem may be even less obvious. There are three kinds of problems that we are all familiar to: arrangement, inducing structure, and transformation. Solving the first type of problems we need to rearranged elements in ways that will satisfy a certain criterion. In other type of problems a person must identify the relationships among the elements and to create the now ones. And in the last one the initial state must be changed in the goal state using a right method for changing. It is important to notice, that we can solve these kinds of problems just having a crucial view to the problem, and if we can to present and organize the information correctly.

Language
How life would change, if we were not able to use language anymore? We can not imagine the situation, when we are like dropped from the moon... There would be no ability to exchange information or to communicate. Moreover, we would not be able to understand the world. As far as everything is normal, we can develop our skills by learning other languages. Noam Chomsky’s theory says that all the world’s languages share a common underlying structure, so it is not as difficult as might seems. But every particular culture has the different view and understanding of the world, so we must be attentive to the details. Language helps us to reach our goals, to do the best we can, so everyone must be proud of having it for such a long time.

Conflicts psychology

Few of us enjoy dealing with conflicts-either with bosses, friends, or strangers. This is particularly true when strong feelings become involved. Resolving conflict can be mentally exhausting and emotionally draining.

"Conflict is an emotionally defined and driven," and "does not exist in the absence of emotion."

Psychologists say that it is important to realize that conflict that requires resolution is neither good nor bad. There can be positive and negative outcomes. It can be destructive but can also play a productive role for you personally and for your relationships-both personal and professional. The important point is to manage the conflict, not to suppress conflict and not to let conflict escalate out of control. Many of us seek to avoid conflict when it arises but there are many times when we should use conflict as a critical aspect of creativity and motivation.

It is useful to categorize the various responses we have to conflict in terms of two dimensions:
1. how important or unimportant it is to satisfy our needs and
2. how important or unimportant it is to satisfy the other person's needs.

For many of us it is the psychological aspects that are more difficult.
a)how comfortable each feels about conflict
b)how each perceives the other
c)assumptions each makes about the other
d)trust
e)how important winning is
f) how important is it to avoid conflict
g)how much one likes or dislikes the other
h)how important is it to not look foolish

HOW TO WORK OUT CONFLICTS(Fairly and Peacefully)

1. STOP . . .before you lose control of your temper and make the conflict worse.
2. SAY . . .what you feel is the problem. What is causing the disagreement? What do you want?
3. LISTEN . . .to the other person's ideas and feelings.
4. THINK . . .of solutions that will satisfy both of you.
If you still can't agree, ask someone else to help you work it out.

Laziness

... Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. ~Jules Renard ...


You know the phrases “Try hard” and “Don’t do anything”. We need to know when each of these is applicable. “Try hard” when you are lazy - cut it. . . We have this tendency to be lazy, to whine and complain.
Laziness is the lack of desire to act or work in general or to do an act or work that is expected of a person. In extreme cases, a generalized tendency to do nothing may verge on apathy and be a symptom of depression. What is considered laziness varies according to personal or societal context and magnitude. Laziness can be considered an exaggeration of the natural instinct to get healthy rest and conserve precious energy. Laziness is usually associated with procrastination.

Laziness is considered by some Christians to be one of the seven deadly sins, though it is called sloth on the list.

The expression "intellectual laziness" is frequently used to describe a tendency to not ask questions, and not to scratch too much behind the apparent, applying a kind of mental routine or just following the crowd.

There are different kinds of laziness. First, there’s the laziness of comfort orientation, we just try to stay comfortable and cozy. Then there’s the laziness of loss of heart, a kind of deep discouragement, a feeling of giving up on ourselves, of hopelessness. There’s also the laziness of couldn’t care less. That’s when we harden into resignation and bitterness and just close down.


The laziness of loss of heart is characterized by vulnerability, woundedness, and not knowing what to do. We tried just being ourselves and we didn’t measure up. The way we are is not okay. We chased after pleasure and found no lasting happiness. We took time off, went on vacation, learned to meditate, studied spiritual teachings, or spent years dedicated to certain political or philosophical views and we found no satisfaction. We feel we could gladly sleep for a thousand years. Our life feels meaningless. Loss of heart is so painful that we become paralyzed.

Couldn’t care less is harder. We feel that we just don’t give a damn anymore. We feel lazy and mean at the same time.
We feel as if we can’t do much anyway, and frankly, we don’t care

There is a lot of sayings about lazzy people, or how to be lazzy and avoid responsibility. For example:
Don’t do anything today, that you can do tomorow.
If you feel like working, wait a minute- it will passes.

If you want to deal with this problem- have a baby! They require lots of almost constant attention. If you want to actually accomplish anything, you have to plan every second of your life. Of course, you probably won't get any more done than before, outside of taking care of the baby

Talking about myself, I know exactly how long anything I have to do will take me, so I procrastinate until the very last minute, and then do it all at once. No time for serious review and editing. No time to start over if I didn’t do the best job I could have.

However, it is good to relax, to do nothing.. but just after you have finished your works.

Introduction

Ironically, but this post, which should be the first is actually the third here… So I have tried the system for my own and I think it’s really useful and fun. I hope that we well get ability to chat with our friends, who have their bloggers here too, and I will get more information about the most important things from them…

Profession I have chosen is so exciting, that I can’t believe that it is really happening to me…I’m talking about how interesting science can be… I never knew that it could be so fun going to classes or listening lectures. Now, I can spend hours listening about humans, relationships, our abilities and other things… I believe that having this kind of knowledge will help me in my future life, creating my own firm or in everyday life…

Making my English as good as possible I’m also creating my future. So now I am on my way, and I hope everything will succeed …

Emotional literacy

Emotional literacy

The ability to recognize, handle and appropriately express our emotions and feelings is what we call emotional literacy. Some of us are doing it better than others, but it is normal. It is not just because people react differently to the same thing, the reason is that some of them are better in working with computers, for example, and in this case, the others can easily express everything they want to.

Emotional literacy is necessary even in the childhood, because kids must be developed in this way as well. If they were able to express their emotions or needs, they would have a high level of interpersonal skills, which are required in job. Understanding emotional literacy is a key helping young people develop self- esteem. Nevertheless, we should try to understand what kind of feelings and thoughts have our friends too.



In teamwork and in our private life it is important to feel safe, useful and understood. Moreover, we can not go far without love, support and other basic needs. Life will not be fulfilled without our friends, relatives or even neighbours, so we must treat them right that the feedback would be nice. I am not saying that the feelings we are shown must be just positive as happiness, love, appreciation, but the negatives too. We have to learn, how to show our anger, boredom or rejection without hurting others.

I have made some few tests about how good I am in expressing my emotions, but the results showed that I (as we all do) have a lot of space to perfection.