A week ago our speech and debate meet ran 3 hours long. This meant that we would get home a little bit before one in the morning, and threw everyone into a foul mood.
As we walked through the darkness towards our bus I heard the complaints from fellow students, and I had a few of my own. Many dropped the f-bomb a couple of times during their rants.
I could see where they were coming from. The speech coach in charge of the whole thing had added a wildcard event that messed with the whole event timing. None of the judges knew where their rooms were located, and as a result were running about 30 minutes late. In all honesty it was a massive kerfuffle.
I was disappointed. These are the most eloquent people in my school, some with a vocab greater than the GDP of a small country (Not hard with the recession going on around the world, but bare with me). It was sad that people needed to resort to swearing to show their frustration and displeasure.
Swearing is the crass way through a conversation, and also the easy one. Most English teachers force you to stop using overused words like nice or pretty because there is richer vocabulary to use.
I feel the same way about swearing.
While you can easily swear to get your point across, you can just as readily say that you are frustrated by saying "That's not something I want to do again" or "That was infuriating".
You could change out the swear word with something different like "Storm it", "Bother", "not good."
You could even substitute profanity with something non sequitur like "flaming cabbage."
My point is that there are many different ways that change your vocabulary, forego swearing and maybe even lighten the mood. I believe that when we choose words that articulate our feelings without swearing, not only do we come across as more polished, but we also open the door to uplift those around us. Brightening the mood, rather than "cursing" the darkness.
The Savior taught that it wasn't the things that go into us, that defile us, or define our character, but, "But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man..." (Matthew 15:18). The words I speak are a reflection of me.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
After a long and windy talk about my breakfast I tell you the purpose of my part of the blog
A while back I was at a speech and debate meet in Cheyenne, and I had some neat experiences. The first one happened the second morning of the meet, my friend and I went to breakfast at the Village Inn. While we were waiting for our food he and I had a really interesting conversation.
We talked about two big things, autism and community which was a great chance to get to know him.
My senior friend works with children with learning disabilities and other challenges in our school. One of the big groups he works with are those with moderate to severe autism. When he is with them he is one of the most patient people in the world. I honestly admire him for that.
When he goes off to college he plans on studying autism and plans on attempting to find a better method to teaching autistic students. then we started talking about community.
We began by talking about how many autistic kids don't have that sense of community that many of us humans as social creatures have, in particular about how about a family in my ward brings their autistic son to our church. We both believed that that was a great thing for them to do. He told me how unless an autistic kid like their son is immersed in a community like that they have a hard time understanding those connections.
That moved us to a conversation about community in general.
We talked about how family is one of the first communities we have. I am extremely thankful that my family is the way it is, very supportive, loving, and doing whatever it takes for my siblings and I to be raised right. soon after that we talked about communities that reach farther out to more people.
Friends, school and church. Those were some of the big communities we talked about. My senior friend is definitely what would qualify as an extrovert. He gets so much energy from talking to people and usually has a viewpoint that I haven't thought of yet.
He has many friends in every grade in our school and more than a few all around the country. His feelings on friendship as a community were slightly different from my own. He is the type of guy who can go months without talking to someone then pickup the conversation from where it last ended. I see my community of friendship as a wide circle of acquaintances with a tight circle of friends.
We then spoke about how in schools we have a community of teachers and staff who watch out for us. After that we talked about how religions are tight knit groups.
He told me that one of the reasons I was tolerable as a freshmen was that because I was following my beliefs but I wasn't pushing them on anyone else.
I kinda believe that that is the point of our blog, to show what our daily lives are like with a small lesson about our church. That's how I plan on writing my portion of the blog, by taking events from m life and talking about my beliefs on the subject. Like how my conversation with my friend went.
We talked about two big things, autism and community which was a great chance to get to know him.
My senior friend works with children with learning disabilities and other challenges in our school. One of the big groups he works with are those with moderate to severe autism. When he is with them he is one of the most patient people in the world. I honestly admire him for that.
When he goes off to college he plans on studying autism and plans on attempting to find a better method to teaching autistic students. then we started talking about community.
We began by talking about how many autistic kids don't have that sense of community that many of us humans as social creatures have, in particular about how about a family in my ward brings their autistic son to our church. We both believed that that was a great thing for them to do. He told me how unless an autistic kid like their son is immersed in a community like that they have a hard time understanding those connections.
That moved us to a conversation about community in general.
We talked about how family is one of the first communities we have. I am extremely thankful that my family is the way it is, very supportive, loving, and doing whatever it takes for my siblings and I to be raised right. soon after that we talked about communities that reach farther out to more people.
Friends, school and church. Those were some of the big communities we talked about. My senior friend is definitely what would qualify as an extrovert. He gets so much energy from talking to people and usually has a viewpoint that I haven't thought of yet.
He has many friends in every grade in our school and more than a few all around the country. His feelings on friendship as a community were slightly different from my own. He is the type of guy who can go months without talking to someone then pickup the conversation from where it last ended. I see my community of friendship as a wide circle of acquaintances with a tight circle of friends.
We then spoke about how in schools we have a community of teachers and staff who watch out for us. After that we talked about how religions are tight knit groups.
He told me that one of the reasons I was tolerable as a freshmen was that because I was following my beliefs but I wasn't pushing them on anyone else.
I kinda believe that that is the point of our blog, to show what our daily lives are like with a small lesson about our church. That's how I plan on writing my portion of the blog, by taking events from m life and talking about my beliefs on the subject. Like how my conversation with my friend went.
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