Blog #3

One time my good friend Andy and I were working on a film project for our Electronic Field Production 260 class. After spending some time filming, we ran into what I would call “filmer’s block.” At that point we stopped filming and began bouncing ideas off of each other in order to try and figure out what sequence we should film next. I came up with an idea from a movie I had recently watched at the time, and was pretty enthusiastic about it. I started explaining my idea to Andy as he was staring at the list of guidelines for the assignment. As I was trying to explain the idea I had, I noticed it seemed like he was not really paying attention to what I was saying. He just continued to stare at the paper, merely nodding his head and giving that “uh huh” kind of reply.
At the time, I felt pretty pissed. I thought that it was a good idea, and he was not really listening to what I had to say. The listening barriers that were present during that particular situation were being both disinterested and distracted. Andy may have been distracted due to the stress from the assignment itself, as well as making him disinterested in it all together. After reflecting on this past experience, I will definitely encourage myself to listen more attentively to others. I will try to take an interest in the ideas that my peers have to offer, and also try to not become so distracted by any outside forces from the initial conversation.

I can recall one presentation that seemed really disorganized. One semester, I was enrolled in Introduction to Theatre and Drama. Every day, the professor I had always seemed to be disorganized when he would be giving us the lecture. Countless times, he would say “umm,” and slick his hair back. It almost seemed like the nervous tick of someone who was fully prepared for talking in front of the class. This lack of organization had a negative impact on my ability to understand and retain the material. During his lectures, my mind would wander to other thoughts and I would soon be conversing with my other classmates. Some advice that I would have given this professor would be to possibly prepare his notes for the lecture better, and to maybe practice before actually giving the lecture to his students.