Top Artifacts

Artifact 5

This artifact showed me that I exhibit a lot of socially engaged emotions and interdependence with others in my happiest of times. For this assignment I was instructed to make a list of five situations or experiences in which I experienced happiness in the past and identify if the situation was associated with socially disengaged emotions or socially engaged emotions. I’m very much of a free spirit and I enjoy doing things alone, or so I thought. But majority of the situations that came to mind for this assignment occurred when I was with others. Another thing that stuck out to me was that appearance or behavior slightly changed depending on which group of my friends I was with. This had never occurred to me that I assimilate to fit the members of the group I’m hanging with. For instance, when I’m hanging with my old college roommates we tend to dress up whereas when I’m around my group of coworkers I dress more casual, relaxed. This assignment showed me that I, too, have adjusted my behavior to fit in with others and on many more occasions than I tend to think of. 

Artifact 4

I learned that personality is not always consistent across the board, it depends largely on context and the person present (if there is one). I’ve always thought of personality as something that is constant, never-changing. Previously, it was essentially who you are. Now I see that I was confusing what I thought of as personality with identity and both may differ depending on context. I had to identify times in which my behavior did not always match up with my personality for this activity which really helped me see that a lot of my behavior depends on teh situation I’m in, who’s present/involved, the location it occurred in, how I’m feeling previously before it occured, and many other things. So although someone might have an agreeable personality trait, depending on the situation they may express an open or neurotic personality trait. Personality isn’t linear, it’s much more complex.

Artifact 3

My concept of time depends on the strength of the relationship I have with the individual. For this activity I was instructed to give an estimate of the amount of time that I would wait for a list of different individuals. I learned that the stronger the relationship that existed between me and the individual the longer I tended to wait for them to arrive. The length of time that I had known the person or the authority they had did not matter but how close I was to them did. For example, I was given my colleague and boss as people to identify how long I would wait for their arrival and I noted that I would wait longer for my colleague than my boss due to the strength of the relationship I have with my coworker over my boss. Although my boss has more authority over me and I’ve known them longer than my colleague, I wouldn’t wait for my boss longer than if I had to wait for my colleague. On the other hand, I can also see how someone would say that they would wait longer for someone with more authority over them as they may measure time in the amount of power or influence someone has whereas I measure time by relationship strength. Realizing that culture influences time is quite intriguing.

Artifact 2

The biggest take I had from this activity was realizing that my source of happiness has changed over time. I’m aware that what made me happy as a child may no longer elicit the same reaction it once did but I had not stopped to think that the things I did last year may not make me happy anymore. Or even some of the things I did prior to covid-19 may no longer make me happy or as happy as it once did. For example, I used to love going out to eat, happy hours, or to the movies prior to the pandemic but now I no longer get the same feeling I used to when I do those same activities. I’m not quite sure why either but it’s not the same anymore. Secondly, I learned that physical health and happiness have a dymanic relationship. I can remeber times when I’ve been stressed out or sad and ging to the gym perks me right up. Currently, I’ve been working out consistently and I feel like I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I don’t think one impacts the other more but they equally impact on another – happiness leads to a better physical health and a better physicl health leasds to happiness.

Artifact 1

I really enjoyed doing this activity. It made me realize that, in fact, I have a lot of things that represent my culture. As an African American it’s hard to find things that represent my culture as it was stripped for our ancestors when they were stolen and dragged to America to become chattel. Although technically race is not a culture, for Blacks in America it sort of is and we use our race to celebrate the culture we created. That is why this assignment is my favorite. It pushed me to identify all the customs, items, attire, hairstyles, sayings, and food that is associated with black culture. I found an even deeper love for my culture and it’s uniqueness. It’s one that literally rose from the ashes and has come to be the inspiration for many others outside of the black community. Most importantly this assignment showed me the scope of culture. Culture is more than your place of origin or traditions; it’s your language, food, clothes, shared activities, norms, and belief systems. It’s the reason why there’s a “black Twitter” and why whenever someone does something foolish I can look at any black person who also witnessed it and instantly know we are thinking the same thing.