October 21 - October 25

          This week in class we discussed about dating and the different types of love a person has for another individual. Dating gives you the chance to get to know someone's interests, personality and future goals etc. Dating opens the doors to many possibilities, dating exclusively and marriage. Don't ever feel committed to a person just because you go on a date with him/her. Dating is simply spending time with someone and getting to know the person better. When you go out on dates make sure its always with different types of people and in different circumstances. This will allow you to taste a little bit of everything and it'll help you know what type of person you like most. After going out on dates with him/her and have figured out if you want to take it to the next level then that is when you determine the relationship with him/her. If all goes well and you two begin dating exclusively then you must know you are taking away many possibilities of meeting other people. Dating exclusively is being loyal to your significant other and basically preparing for marriage and the wedding. As you prepare for marriage make sure the wedding planning is being done by you and your fiancé and not just the bride and her parents. Decision making for the wedding is a chance to put to test the way you and your fiancé can compromise with one another. Work hard to agree and all will turn out great. After marriage, you will experience many different types of loves. The different types of love are storge, philia, eros, and agape. Storge is the love a parent has for his/her children, philia is the type of love there is between your friends and yourself, eros is the love between a man and woman, and agape is the independent love you hold for someone else. I believe that if you exercise these types of love, it will help keep your marriage in balance.

October 14-18

     This week I learned about the different qualities each gender has. Females are more emotional, nurturing, multi-taskers, relation oriented and are more communicative. While males are the protectors, strong, aggressive, and are oriented around one thing at a time. The differences a male and female have can help the couple work together, it might be hard to compromise but the outcome of working things out is much more rewarding than arguing. I also learned that females and males have about the same amount of emotions but females send them/express them more than males do. Males sometimes don't know how to express them or find it unnecessary to do so, while females find it a lot more necessary. We also talked about how one of the factors for divorce is because sometimes couples do not express themselves. Sometimes an individual assumes the partner already knows something and they are actually wrong. Communication is a key point in a marriage and couples must learn to work together through each others flaws, sometimes the flaws can unite them and make them even stronger than before.

October 7 - October 10

         This week I learned that many new parents tend to put into practice their own culture and copy the way their own parents were as they were growing up. Sometimes new parents are unaware of the same habits and rules they copied from there parents and in the end they sometimes can not believe how much alike they are or sometimes they don't acknowledge the similarities. Family cultures also get passed down, sometimes it becomes modified but the main idea stays the same. In my parents culture it was expected for the family to make tamales for Christmas, every year of their lives they made tamales on Christmas. When my parents married, they carried out that same culture onto their children and now we are expected to help make these tamales every Christmas. I once asked my mom why we made tamales every year? Why was it necessary if it's exhausting to make them? She answered and said "Daisy, its in our culture and I will honor it. I've made them every year of my life since I was a child and I will continue to make them. I love them." When she said this I knew that she was definitely carrying out her culture into her children's lives. I also learned that we shouldn't be afraid to change our culture. Changing our cultures can sometimes be difficult, depending on the situation. I know my father changed a culture that was carried out in his family since before his grandma was born. Most Hispanic families believe in the Catholic church and attend mass on Sunday's. My dad grew up within the Catholic church up until the age of 12 years old. He met the missionaries and was converted into the gospel, he says "My mom and family were so mad at me, many didn't talk to me for months because I made a change within the family." As time went by, he began influencing his siblings into the church and they as well were baptized and so was his parents. Now, all his children, nieces, nephews, cousins, uncles and aunts are Mormon. He made a change in our culture.

September 30 - October 4

     This week I learned about many different theories, but the one I was most interested in and felt like it applied to my own family is the "Exchange Theory". This theory is about how individuals within a family expect things in return when they give something out. For example, if a mother cooks for the entire family, she might expect one of the oldest child to wash the dishes, or if siblings borrow each others stuff they expect to hear a "thank you" for letting them borrow it. Exchange theory can be implied in many ways, not just like in my examples. A way that this theory applies into my own family is my dad always expecting his children to complete our chores in order for him to give us something we wanted, sometimes we wanted a toy or a chance to go out with friends etc. Many families practice this theory unconsciously but it does not describe how a family works entirely, this theory is just a small fraction of how a family works.