Monday, November 17, 2003

Monday and I am behind before I start.

Blogging might be very slow the next few days. I didn't get everything done Sunday and the week is looking more and more tight, time wise. I enjoy the moments that I reflect about my studies and various other things here and there is a reward in knowing that there are a couple of people actually checking to see what I am doing and what I am thinking about. Thank you to those people.

Tonight was the self awareness class. Most of the time the topics are ones I have considered, but it is always good to revisit to see if there are any more layers I can expose in the understanding of self. The discussion tonight had several interesting topics, but only one stands out.

We all wrote anonymous questions that might be woman to a man or vice versa. The questions were then compiled and discussed in groups. One of the questions was 'why do women exaggerate their stories so much'. As it turns out, the questioner wanted to know why it takes so long for women to tell their stories as opposed to a man. The example was a man goes to the store to get something and if you ask him where he went the generalization is that he will tell you that he went to the store or at most he will tell you he went out to get such and such.
The stereotype is that a woman asked the same question will tell you what happened on the way there, what she saw, who she talked to and how they are doing and sort of incidentally will tell you about the item she bought, but then will probably tell you about the other item she almost bought and so on.. you get the idea of what the male who composed this question was thinking. It is a stereotype, but it also made me laugh because there is some truth to it in my experience.

I used to get these weird stares from my husband and son when answering a question. Their idea of an answer to most things is a three word maximum and will only sometimes be polite enough to listen to any longer version without demonstrating their impatience. There are more than a few exceptions to this, but I have grown used which things they want the longer answers to and try to shorten most things as much as I can. I can "do" their version of where have I been...
I guess in part that is why I blog.

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