Blog Post #11 - Personality

1) In my opinion, my personality is very complex. In some aspects I do not even know what my personality is. For example, I see myself as an organized person because I hate disorganization. If you would look in my locker at my binders and books, you would say I'm extremely organized, but if you would look at my room . . . well you would think the exact opposite. I love to organize things, but I find I have a lack of time. I sometimes portray opposite personality traits. Sometimes I will be very outgoing, while other times I will not want to talk to anyone. Overall, I believe that these personality traits fit me well:

Positive Traits
- Open-minded: by being open-minded, I am open to experience many new and exciting things! Even if I am a little timid, if I know I will be safe, I push myself to try it, at least once because then I can say that I did it. This gives me a sense of pride.
- Caring/Thoughtful: by being caring and thoughtful, I find that other peoples' attitudes towards are positive. When people have a positive attitude towards you, you end up making more friends, more connections, and in the end, more opportunities. Being caring and thoughtful also makes me feel good because I love helping others.
- Controlled: I can control my actions and words very well. I keep many of my thoughts and feelings to myself, unless I really trust a person. By controlling my actions and my words, I do not get into trouble very often.
- Careful: I take care in everything I do. I am usually very careful in my choice of words and actions, which also keeps me out of trouble. When performing a job or homework I take care in the work I am doing so that it is the best it can be. By doing this, employers and other people trust me with several tasks.
- Leadership: Through the FFA I have learned several leadership skills. I can use these skills throughout my whole life. By being a leader I can successfully drive a group with a common goal to success. I am also very good at listening to peoples' ideas and utilizing each individual's talent(s) to contribute to the final goal.
- Perfectionist: As a perfectionist, I put a lot of time and effort into everything I do, which usually results in outstanding work. This is my most dominate trait (just ask anyone who knows me). People recognize the outstanding work that results from my perfectionism and I am given several opportunities because of it.

Negative Traits
- Moody: When I am moody, I affect all of the people around me in a negative way. I am crabby towards those I love most because I am most comfortable expressing my mood/feelings to them. I do not like being moody. If I become moody, everyone else I care about also becomes sad and moody, which makes me sad and makes the whole situation worse.
- Procrastination: I constantly wait until the last minute to do things. I hate being a procrastinator because it causes me a lot of stress. I have cried and cried and worried over things that I have to get done in a very short period of time. I believe one reason I am like this is because I do not have good time perception at all. When I think to myself that I have a week to do something, that week flies by really fast and there I sit with a ton of work to do in just one day.
- Perfectionist: Perfectionism is my greatest quality, yet it is also one of my worst. As a perfectionist, I take a lot of time to do things; too much time. I always find myself rushing to get things done. My perfectionism also causes me great anxiety because if I don't feel that my work is perfect, I cannot settle with it. I have to keep racking my brain to get the best results.

2) I do not know if I would call myself an optimist, but I want to and I try to be optimistic. In all situations, I try really hard to find the silver lining, but sometimes trying to be optimistic is so overwhelming. Sometimes I cannot find or accept the silver lining. I find my life is a lot easier when I am passive and optimistic, but the process of pushing myself to find and accept the silver lining is sometimes exhausting and causes me to become even more upset and tired. I want to be optimistic so bad, but some people tell me I am a pessimist. I really don't know what I am. I guess it just depends on the situation. For example, when I am angry over something simple, such as getting one bad grade or fussing over something little that bothered me, I always try to tell myself that getting upset and angry is stupid. I tell myself that my life is so much better than most people. Would I rather be living in a third world country with very little food, water, and shelter? I can also think of an example of my pessimism. I was extremely excited for hunting season this year because it is the one time out of the year I get to see Dad's side of the family (most of them live in Milwaukee), but when I learned that none of them were coming, my excitement dropped to depression. Don't get me wrong, I love hunting and spending time with Dad, but I really wanted to see my family, plus now we won't have enough people to make drives, which are my favorite part of hunting. I had a good time hunting for this first weekend because two of our friends that have a cabin two miles down the road from us stopped by everyday, but they are leaving Tuesday. I don't know what is to come for the rest of the week. My heart aches just thinking about it.

3) Sometimes I am outgoing, while other times I am very conceded. When I am in a good mood and I am with people who are also outgoing and talkative, I have no problem being outgoing myself, but when I am in a group of crabby and quiet people, I find it very hard to leave my comfort zone. Even if I try to be sociable and outgoing, I usually feel like I fail when I cannot influence others to talk back and do the same. This benefits me because it allows me to express my true self and feelings to those people who care. I do not always express my feelings or opinions unless I know and trust the people I am telling it to.
Most of the time I have a good attitude, but sometimes I have a horrible temper. I only get a temper when I am around the people I trust and love the most because they are the only ones I feel comfortable expressing everything to. I also only get a temper when something sets me off. The trigger is usually a single statement, which I blow up at. This is not a trait that I would call good, but it does benefit me because it allows me to just let go of all of the horrible feelings that were building up inside of me. When I blow up, After I sleep and wake up in the morning, I feel so much better than the day before and I can talk about the situation more calmly.


4)Reaction formation: A defense mechanism by which the ego unconsciously switches unacceptable impulses into their opposites. I used to be terrified of large carnival rides (mainly because I am afraid of heights), but one time my cousin got me to ride on one. I absolutely loved it. From then on, even if I was afraid of a ride that I had never gone on before, I tell myself that I am not afraid. When I am freaking out inside, while climbing the steep hill of a roller coaster, I tell myself that I am not afraid of heights. Then, I divert my attention to talking excessively and admiring the wonderful view.
Projection: A defense mechanism by which people disguise their own threatening impulses by attributing them to others. My boyfriend constantly bugs me about my procrastination and it bothers me. Therefore, the second I see him even think about procrastinating about something, I am quick to jump on it an confront him.
Displacement: A defense mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses toward a more acceptable or less threatening object or person. I express this defense mechanism a lot when I am having a bad day. I usually end up taking it out on my parents or my boyfriend by snapping at them and being quick to judge them for any little thing they do. I hate doing this and I don't even know why I do it. I always feel horrible when I do do this.

Blog Post #9 - Memory

Our memory is like our life story in our heads (kind of like a huge scrapbook, photo album, or video album of our lives). We are defined by past events or memories because those experiences have shaped up to form who we are today. Life without memory would be extremely hard to imagine. You would have no recollection of who you are, where you are, what you are doing, and who you are with. Even when watching the video of Clive Wearing, I could not comprehend how he could not remember things. I was surprised that he recognized his wife, yet thought he had not seen her in several years. I am also surprised that he is still a great musician and conductor! If I were Clive's wife, I would become extremely frustrated because living a normal life with my husbad would be extremely difficult. I would have to do almost everything. Despite this, I would stay with my husband because I pledged my love to him and he is really the same person, just with no memory. I can't even imagine what I would do in a situation like this. After watching the video, I feel very fortunate to have memory. As I think back to all of my life experiences, plus what I have learned, I feel that my memory capability is extremely huge! I can't believe a person could store a lifetime of information in one little spot!

I look at the way we interpret memories very differently than I did before. I now find the concept of memory much more complex and extravagant. Such that by making links between familiar things to new things, the new things are much easier to remember, as was demostrated in the first memory exercise I performed. I do not see my memories differently, but I think about them a lot more. For example, a few years ago I lost a very special necklace. I had given it to my gym teacher to hold on for me because I was afraid it was going to get broken during class. I forgot to get it back from her after class. A few days later, I asked if I could have it back, but she told me that she had already given it back to me. At that time I knew that she didn't, but as the months and years went by I constantly question if she actually did and I'm the one who lost it.

One significant concept that I learned in this chapter was forgetting. I forget a lot of things. I easily lose train of thought and forget what I was even going to say or do. In this chapter I learned that forgetting can actually be a good thing: A way to rid your memory of "junk." This is important to me because I now find myself appreciating my forgetfulness because I would not want to be like the Russian memory whiz S, and remember everything! I would be much for frustrated with that problem. I can apply this to my life by realizing I must forget things to be able to retain more important information. In this sense I have become much more understanding of myself.

Blog Post 8

Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events. For example, if you have a cat and feed the cat soft cat food out of a can the cat soon learns that every time they hear a can opener or the seal of a can broken, they are going to get fed. The cat links the sound of the can opening to being fed. Therefore, when the cat hears the can opening, he or she runs to the kitchen and begins to meow and create a fuss. Operant conditioning is a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. For example, while teaching a dog to sit, you give him the command and help him or her to sit. After the dog sits, you reward him with praise, a favorite toy, or a treat. After several repetitions of this process, the dog will realize that every time you say the command and he responds by sitting, he will get a reward; therefore he continues the behavior. Classical conditioning forms associations between stimuli and involves respondent behavior (actions that are automatic responses to a stimulus), while operant conditioning teaches an action by using reinforcement. Both of these types of learning and conditioning greatly apply to my life because I train (teach) equines, canines, and felines. I find it very interesting that I use these concepts everyday when I train animals. I feel that I can relate and understand this chapter more than any of the other chapters we have read so far because of my strong personal connection to it.

Positive reinforcements strengthen a response by presenting a typically pleasurable stimulus after a response. Negative reinforcements strengthens a response by reducing or removing something undesirable or unpleasant. Punishment is a consequence that decreases the behavior that it follows.

Positive Reinforcement: I have always received good grades. I believe the main reason why I receive good grades is because when my parents would get my report card and see excellent grades on it, they would become extremely happy. I would get hugs and Mom and Dad would tell me how proud of me they were. It made me feel extremely good. Sometimes they would even buy me something that I really wanted, just because I got good grades on a report card. Therefore, I always work hard on my schoolwork to achieve that moment, when my parents get to see what my work has done.

Negative Reinforcement: This event did not happen to me, but to my dog. He got into a fight with a porcupine and afterwards, his face was full of quills. It was quite painful for him. My dad tried to pull them out. Our dog was fidgeting a lot for the first few quills, but as my dad kept pulling them out, he realized that after the quill was pulled out, the pain wasn't nearly as bad. Therefore, our dog stood very still the rest of the time. After that day, if anything was physically hurting him, he would always go to Dad and let Dad help him.

Punishment: A few years ago I was training a miniature stallion. His training was going very well, until I tried to separate him from "his mare." As I was leading him away, he bit me. I let go of him in shock. He then turned around and kicked me and ran back to "his mare." After that his biting and kicking increased in severity. Everyone was afraid of him. One day, after he was gelded, I was sick and tired of his severe behavior. I took him out of the field and simply walked him around in a circle. I watched his muzzle very closely and every time he tried to bite me or even held his ears back I whacked him across the nose with the end of the lead rope because biting is a VERY VERY UNACCEPTABLE behavior. Let me tell you, he stopped biting and kicking real fast. He has not bitten or kicked anyone since then and is now an excellent miniature pony, who has won all blue ribbons in his performance classes!

I thought that everything in this chapter was interesting! I especially liked learning more about operant conditioning because I use it all the time, every day when I train animals. I also liked learning the different ways operant conditioning can be used. I can use this information to more effectively teach others during Food for America, Safety Day, and the other presentations that I put on throughout the year. I can also subconsciously use this information while trying to recruit people to participate in an activity and "training" boyfriends (JUST KIDDING!).