iExamen 2

iExamen 2

                  

              Coming from a conservative American little island, the language we used was something important because it separated you from “uneducated” people vs “educate” people. My parents had made sure that I get three conditions in my communication kindness, usefully and the truth. If I look at my childhood, I can remember some slaps in the mouth and long punishments for saying some "white" lies or saying things that were not kind and even today at almost 20 years I still getting some small punishments and some serious faces. These conditions have become part of me and now there are no longer conditions, there are filters. Filters that I have been developed in a way that I can activate and deactivate them to improve my communication and change my behavior with different people. 

              On Saturday when I woke up in my home I was ready to analyze every word that left my mouth. Beside my days at the university where when I get up everyone still asleep and I have no one to talk to; at home, everyone was waiting for me in the kitchen ready to talk about their days. So, with a “Good morning!” I started this day. The conversations flowed non-stop. The themes changed both in subject and maturity. At one point we were talking about some documentaries that we had seen about Egypt and in the next second, we were talking about how sick my sister's doll was and how she had been cured by receiving the hair of a unicorn as medicine. The conversations remained as deep and as childish as you could imagine.

               Over the day I noticed that even if I used the filters in the same "way" I noticed some new filters as I spoke with my parents and my sisters. When I spoke to my sisters, filters were trying to simplify my thoughts, and blocking any word or sentence that can suggest that Santa Claus and unicorns not exist. While I was talking to my parents I was looking for more complex words and deleting every "misspelling words" because “misspelling words can’t be said under any circumstances”. For me was interesting, because I wasn’t conscious about how many filters I am able to use in a short period of time. They had become an automatic process. 

                Using and analyzing my filters before speaking wasn't really difficult or out of the norm for me. Actually, I enjoyed it, because being understood it’s something that although we do not give any value, now that I found myself in the situation of speaking a foreign language and not being understood as I wanted, it has taught me its importance. So talking in my native language and being able to be really understood without any type of misunderstood was as a weight took off my back and something that I learned to appreciated the most.