Wow... so it's aparently time for an update that's not so down... Finals are over!!! Not only that but I did a lot better in all of my classes than I thought that I was going to. I have a week to get things together before I go to Vegas with my wonderful boyfriend, Andy. We'll be in Vegas over Christmas for about five days or so but I'll probably still have my laptop with me because I have to keep in touch with people.
Speaking of people... I need to get out and experience culture again. It feels like I've suddenly sheltered myself from the world and experience. It annoys me when I let myself get so caught up in my own stressors that I do not allow myself to see how insignificant the stressors in my life really are. When I compare the blessings of our culture to other cultures that do not seem to have as much money or freedom as we do, it makes me again realize how small my worries really are.
In order to understand who we are, we must understand the world around us not only from our own perspective, but also the perspectives of each of the people around us. To many times we look at them and try to explain them from our own eyes and our own perspectives only to be brought up short. It is not possible sometimes to truly understand what motivates somebody from our own culture to do something. How then, can we expect to understand somebody with different symbols, and cultural values entirely?
I recently finished (lol, just took the final in is more like it) an introduction to clinical psychology class that really struck several cords in me regarding values and norms. How can we expect to judge somebody to have a disorder when we have no idea what their values are? Often that comes back to religious beliefs but sometimes it is as simple as learning not to tell a lie, or telling a lie depending on the culture. How do you "fix" somebody that does not have a disorder in their culture, and who are you to say they need "fixing" in the first place?
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