Journals three and four

Journal 3:
I don't completely understand my group dynamic yet. I think maybe we're all acting slightly passive aggressively and I hope we can work through that. For now though, I'm going to give us the benefit of the doubt and see where we go. My group has an interesting dynamic that I think could go in either a positive or negative direction. We haven't worked together enough to know which way this is going to go yet, but we're all very opinionated in different ways and have the potential to clash. However, this will also make our project much more interesting as all sides of the conflict will be represented in a personal way. I think despite our differences we will be able to work together. I hope and think that we can overcome those and come out with a balanced portrayal of the conflict.

Journal 4:
My conflicts generally stem from bad communication. Most of my conflicts happen within my family and within my friends and other personal relationships. I was in one particularly bad conflict recently that was based solely around misunderstanding and intercommunication in an emotionally charged and tense situation. It was made even worse by the fact that the whole thing took place over the internet, so no voice inflection or facial expressions could help. Both of us made selfish assumptions despite our trying to take into consideration the other persons feelings. This escalated, him thinking I was trying to piss him off and retaliating because of that. We were able to solve it by stepping back and talking about what had been said and how we had hurt the other. This is an example of how communication and lack of understanding can mess up a relationship even when both parties involved don't want to mess it up or hurt the other person. This is especially true in emotionally charged situations where people are already hurting and feeling especially vulnerable. This conflict between me and a person very special to me could have easily ruined our relationship had we not taken into account the situation from the other persons point of view and been willing to sacrifice something to understand and forgive.