Journals of BHO3473 (1)

I wrote totally 6 journals:

JOURNAL 1:

During the long summer holiday, I have two goals to make the holiday more interesting and fantastic. Firstly, I want to learn MYOB by myself. Secondly, I have a plan to travel to Gold Coast after the summer course, and all the expenditure is from the income of my part time job.


For the first goal, I did not learn MYOB before because I haven’t had enough knowledge to learn it. My major is accounting, so learning how to be an accountant is the final goal of my university life. MYOB is a practical software, and in the past time I have been learning the theory of accounting, such as Accounting Information System, Financial Accounting. By the last semester, I have learned all the necessary knowledge required by MYOB. For these reasons, this summer I have the capability to learn MYOB and I have determination to make it.

So far, I have got the textbook and installation program of MYOB. After installing MYOB into my computer, I can learn how to use it following the textbook step by step.

There are 10 chapters in the textbook (MYOB, John Ring and Col Cheetham, 2008), so I plan to use 30 days to learn it from 9 January to 7 February. Because I have class and part time job in daytime, all the study will be processed in the night except Sunday.

The timetable for learning MYOB is shown as below:

Traveling Gold Coast is my second goal.

I am an international student, besides studying in Melbourne I have traveled several cities in Australia, for example, Adelaide and Sydney. In the summer holiday, I want to visit some places far from Melbourne. And I like the sea, so the Gold Coast is the best choice for me.

There are two necessary factors for traveling, i.e. time and money. During the school time, I don’t have enough time to travel, but the summer holiday is long enough to travel as well as study. The summer school will last from 06 January to 05 February, so after that I have enough time to travel. And I plan to travel Gold Coast from 17 February to 21 February. So now, the most important thing is money. I have a part time job in a duty free shop. If I want to have a good trip, I must have a good budget on it. The necessary expenditure for travel is air fare and accommodation fee. If I order the air tickets now, the price is around $200 for return. And if I stay in YHA Hostel, generally it costs $30 per night for one people. So before 17 February, I must earn more than $350, this amount is just fundamental cost, my total budget is $ 700. There are 5 weeks left from now to 17 February, I must work at least 20 hours per week to maintain my daily cost and prepare for the traveling.

JOURNAL 2

I will give effective criticism to solve a problem in the journal. I am living with another guy in a flat. We have our own room, but we share some public areas like kitchen and bathroom. So there are some conflicts between us when we using the public area. In the situation which I state below, I found out an effective criticism to solve the conflict. I will show an example to explain how to give effective criticism.


Last Sunday, both of us wanted to cook dinner at 6:00pm but the space was limited, if one person cooked there, the other one could not use it at all. At that time he was just starting to cook while I was so hungry, he looked at me and said “I am busy now, could you wait a couple of minutes?” I heard his words and felt a little angry. It was not the first time when he said that, he was so slow when he cooked. In his dictionary, a couple of minutes mean at least an hour. From Monday to Saturday, we have different timetables, so we don’t affect other when we cook. But on Sunday, we both at home, so when to cook dinner is a problem for us. I thought it was the time to solve this problem. So I talked to him on that day, and after a few minutes, the conflict was fixed. Using the method learned from this subject, this problem was solved.

On the first step, I gave him some praise. “I know that you want to everything to be perfect. You keep our kitchen very clean so that we have a comfortable environment to cook. Thanks very much.”

Following that, I criticize immediately, perform the criticism and give specific, accurate criticism. “I think it is too late now and we are hungry. Both of us want to have a dinner as soon as possible. But the kitchen is too narrow. Previously, I always waited for you finishing cooking and then cook my dinner. However, I found that you always start cooking at nearly 6:00pm and finish it at nearly 8:00pm. So, when I finish the dinner, it is almost 9:00pm. It is bad for health. How about we cook together today, I wash the vegetable and something else, and you cook it.”

Then I opened on a positive note. “I understand this action cannot solve the problem and even enhance the conflict. So I suggest that we can design a timetable. Everyone should cook follow the timetable and finish cooking as soon as possible. The first person should start at 5:30pm.” Then, I showed him my suggestion timetable below:

Finally, I pointed out the action required. “We should follow that timetable so that both of us can have dinner on time. Also, we must keep a clean environment for the next one who wants to cook.” After I gave expression to him, he looks so shamefaced and said “I am sorry about my words and inconvenience for you before. I never thought about your feeling. I think the timetable is good, appropriate and convenient. We will cook follow it.”

In my opinion, this conflict is solved. It proves that I am successful in giving effective criticism. I give praise firstly instead of disputing with the guy or criticizing him. If I really wrangle with him right now, it is bad for our relationship. And then criticizing him immediately and pointing his mistakes. I think the most difficult step is giving specific and accurate criticism. Sometimes I don’t know what to say when somebody don’t do the right thing or do something wrong. I will do more exercise on this step. I will give more appropriate criticism next time. I should make my tone more softly, maybe that can make the conversation smoother and easier.

Comparing with the activity what we did in the lecture, I think it is more difficult when I gave effective criticism in real life. The reasons are as follow:

Firstly, when I did the exercise in the class, I have enough time to think how to answer the “questions”. In contrast, I didn’t have enough time to think about what I should say to him. Secondly, the consequence of talking to my housemate was more important for me, because it would affect the relations of us. I will do more exercise on how to give effective criticism in the future, especially on the step- giving specific and accurate criticism. It is very common to criticize others, and an effective criticism can improve the relationship with others, but the bad one can’t.

JOURNAL 3

After reading the conversation between Barbara and Peter I find some barriers to interpersonal communication.
1. When Barbara said, “I just want to know what is going to happen with us. We are going to graduate in June-five months from now. What is going to happen then?” Peter replied, “Nothing. I mean the same as now.” This barrier is “static evaluation”. When Barbara wanted to discuss the plans for after graduation with Peter, Peter terminated the continued conversation about plan and gainsaid the development of the plan. Thus, static evaluation causes the ending of the conversation.
2. Peter said: “So we are together. What more do you want.” And then, Barbara said: “I want to know you care for me.” And Peter said: “I care.” This one is “bypassing”. When Barbara showed that she wanted to be together, Peter just use the word “together”, which means we are together now, to replace the meaning of Barbara’s “together”, which means she wants to go on together in the future. As a result, Peter evaded answer Barbara’s question and transfer the topic to care.
3. Peter said, “I do not want to marry my mother.” Barbara answered, “Oh, so that is it. You do not want to marry me.” This is an example of fact-inference confusion. Peter just wanted to explain that his mother always to disturb his life and did not expect his girlfriend do the same thing as his mother. However, Barbara thought Peter did not want to marry her. She misconstrued the fact of the Peter’s meaning. Therefore, fact-inference confusion leads to miscommunication.
In my life, a thing made me annoyed was argued with my teacher when I studied in junior high school.
I always talked with my classmates during the class, because I was so young then, sometimes I couldn’t not able to control myself. (In my country, students are not allowed to talk to each other during the class, especially in primary school and junior high school.) My teacher decided a plan for stopping students talking during the class. It was said that if some one talks during the class, he would clean the classroom. On the next day, I really didn’t talk to others because I did not want to be punished. But when my teacher declared the name of “talkers”, I was so angry. I was on the list. After school, I talked to the monitor firstly, he said he forgot to record who was talking in the class, so he just put some names on the list by he imagined. That was unacceptable. Then, I came to teacher’s office and said, “Why do you think I am talking in the class today? The monitor forgot to write down the name on the list, that is his mistake. You cannot use his mistake to punish me.” I used a lot of You statement and others listened to my explain likes the blame. My teacher heard my word and said, “I understand your feeling and I do not know what is happen?” I found that my teacher would like to listen to my opinion and then I said, “I know that I was always talking in the class. But today I really listen to the teacher carefully, and never talk during the class time. Jerry can prove I what I said.” After that, my teacher said, “I will ask Jerry to prove what you said. If your words are the truth, I am so sorry. I will ask monitor to apologize for you.”
From this thing, I found that I statements are more effectively than You statements. The reason is that I statement direct describe how and why I feel as I do. Others can easier understand my opinion clearly and honestly through my I statements. That was very important in communication. In contrast, You statement, which usually includes the blame, is hard to understand the thinking and also easy to make barriers during the communication. In the daily life, I should use more I statements, and avoid You statements.

JOURNAL 4

In the lecture, Jessica and I are in a group to discuss the intercultural communication. Jessica is from New Zealand, but I am from China. We explored the cultural similarities and differences between two countries.
Firstly, the language is different. Obviously, I speak Mandarin when I am at home. But she uses English. Chinese can be classified as High Context language, but English is Low Context.
Secondly, use of space is different. Because China has the largest population in the world, so there is little space for each people. But the situation in New Zealand is different.
Thirdly, power distance is different. In China, employees don’t talk much to their boss. On the other side, the boss rarely listens to the requirement or information from the employees. In contrast, it is very common that the employees communicate with the boss directly. In the theory of Hofsted’s Five Dimensions, Chinese culture belong to High Power Distance, but New Zealand’s culture belong to Low Power Distance.
Fourthly, Chinese culture is more like Collectivism, but New Zealand is Individualism. Under collectivism, the interest of the collective, the group, is considered more important than the individual. In contrast, the interest of individual is important as well as group.
Fifthly, unlike New Zealanders, Chinese people rarely like to enter into a debt, they would rather take longer to save up them to purchase now and pay it off later with or without interest. Hofstede’s Five Dimensions describe this Chinese characteristic as being long-term orientation, and subsequently New Zealand being short-term orientation.
But there are also some similarities between these two cultures.

Firstly, In China, there are 56 nations living together. Similarly, immigrants who come from different country settle in Australia and mix in friendly.
Secondly, Jessica and I have similar religious points of view, we are both atheists. In both China and New Zealand, there is a freedom of belief.


A stereotype is a prejudice towards an individual that simplifies thought and labels an individual into a group that is characterized with certain attributes with which this individual is expected to support. More simply stated, a stereotype is a preconceived and oversimplified notion of characteristics typical of a person or group.


When we communication with others, we should avoid stereotyping, because this can cause the barriers of communication. Especially when people contact other people who have different culture backgrounds, stereotyping can cause a lot of problem. To avoid it, there are four steps to change or minimize the stereotypes:

1. Interact on a personal as well as a professional level.

2. Commit considerable time and energy to the relationship.

3. Consciously work to form an accurate impression of the other person.

4. View the other person as a typical member of the other group.

JOURNAL 5
 
In the daily life, nonverbal communication is very important to us. Usually, though through others’ gesture, body language or posture, facial expression and eye contact, we can see the emotion, such as, happy, sad and shy. In the lecture, I successful expressed some my “feeling” of exercise 6.5, but also failed to express the others. In my opinion, the most difficult one is “anger”, because when someone is angry, others can feel his emotion from his voice, expression and activities. But during the exercise, we couldn’t use so many words, and I think the voice is the most important factor to express “anger”. I tried my best to express it, but only using some body language was a little difficult to express anger. In the real life, the anger happens when we are frustrated, thwarted or attacked. When you are angry, you cannot express your feeling and take in the information from other people. If we continue to communicate, it will create dislike, frustration, and even conflict or revenge.
Sometimes, I can not communicate well with the people from different culture, because of shyness and different culture background. These are two main barriers in communication. When I am shy, I am afraid to look at the eyes of whom I talk with. So I lose eye communication and other types of non verbal communication. In addition, if I communicate with others who come from different countries, we do not know the background between two countries. Different gestures in different cultures stand for different meanings. For example, in most culture, nodding head means yes, but in some countries in Western Europe, this action means no. So when we communicate with the people from these countries, we should be aware of it and avoid making conflict.
In my point of view, interpreting is more difficult than expressing, because interpreting is the process of understanding what the others’ meanings. To deal with it, we should know both verbal and non-verbal language well, and as mentioned above, sometimes we don’t know the others’ non-verbal language well because of different culture or something else. However, expressing just needs about communicate with others about your feeling. When you express something, you are just in your most familiar way to do it, and sometimes you don’t need to care about others whether understand it. I think there are some ways to make interpreting easier. The most important thing is learning some non-verbal language, which is necessary for interpreting. Especially we should notice that, some non-verbal language in different culture has different meaning.
When we communicate with others, I should use non verbal messages interacting with verbal message. The non verbal communication can make our communication more effectively and easier. Non verbal communication includes gestures, posture, facial communication, space communication, touch communication and paralanguage. They are all important for us to communicate with others. The non-verbal communication can help us to interpret and express our meaning. Meanwhile, some of non-verbal language can make the communication smoother, for example the smile and eye communication can make others would like to communicate with you.

JOURNAL 6

In the lecture activity “Lost on the moon”, our group did not bad, we made several items correct. In the activity, we used “Compromising Style” to deal with the conflict. Compromising Style means important for all parties to achieve basic goals and maintain good relationships, aggressive but cooperative. I think this is a good way to manage the conflict, so that we can share our ideas easily. When the conflict occurred, we explained our own idea, and then decided which one is correct together. During the activity, I acted as a “Teddy Bear”, i.e. Accommodating Style. This style means agreeable, non assertive behavior, cooperative even at the expense of personal goals. Sometimes, I thought this strategy wasn’t good for team work, because I couldn’t express my idea well. But it didn’t mean I don’t want to make the team work more effective. Sometimes I didn’t know the related knowledge, so I thought keep silence is the best way. For example, when we talked about “Magnetic Compass”, I was not sure whether it worked in the space. When the others said it was very important for people to find a way back home, I agreed with them. But actually, the magnetic compass was not important in the space. Of course, the ideal result for us is win-win. It means Problem Solving Style. It needs of both parties are seen as legitimate and important. But in the exercise, some barriers keep us away form win/win strategy. As mentioned, lacking of knowledge is one of factors so we can’t get win/win. If we have enough knowledge, I think we could have a better result.


Now, I will describe a situation where I experienced conflict with another person. At the end of last semester, I saw an advertisement on the board of school, and it said that the West Footscray House needs cleaner. Then I called the management of the House. She said I could work there. She told me the work time is between 7:30 am and 9:00 am. My duty was changing the bed covers and bed sheets. Also I had a teammate, he deal with the bathroom. We cooperated well during the first week. But in the second week, my teammate caught a cold, and he didn’t feel well during the work. He could not finish his work on time. But when the manager checked our work, she saw we could not finish the work on time, she blamed me and asked me why I haven’t helped him to finish his work. This situation happened at least three times within one week, and I said nothing to her when she blamed me, because I think she was the manager, at least I should give her some respect. But on the third week, she blamed me again as the same reason. I said to her the bathroom was not my duty, I have no responsibility to its cleanliness. Meanwhile I had a lot work to do, if I had time I will help him, but in the fact, I didn’t have time to help him. And she always blame me but didn’t not according the fact, I could not stand it. So I quit. And she said it was fine, I could quit from the job.
In this situation, I used “Avoidance Style” before I quit the job. Because I didn’t think the goal and relationship between manager and me are important for me. Maybe the result was not good for both of us, because after quit it, I had to find another job, and the manager had to find another guy to replace me in a short time. After study the “Conflict Management”, I think there would be a better way to resolve the conflict. I should do as “Owl”- Needs of both parties are seen as legitimate and important. I should explain why my teammate couldn’t finish his work on time and why I could not help him when the first time blame, so that she could understand the situation better. And she won’t blame me again, the conflict won’t go further. At last, I could continue the job and she need not find a new guy. That’s the win/win strategy.
In the real world, I prefer “Problem Solving Style”, because it really helps us to solve the conflict. I want to make everything perfect, and in this style, an agreement is sought that maximizes joint benefit and resolves any tensions and negative feelings. Think of solutions that will give me both what I want and will keep the relationship positive.