Art of Listening

One of my school assignments: Create a narrative (personal experience) writing sample of three paragraphs describing listening and its importance in your future classes and your planned career. The first paragraph should be the introduction, the second paragraph should be the body of the message, and the third paragraph should be the conclusion to your writing about listening.

My Assignment I wrote:
Hearing is easy. Listening is a whole other ball game. A lot of people think because we hear we are automatically listening. Listening is vital to our survival. Though you don’t need to hear to listen. I have a journaling friend who is deaf. She wasn’t always deaf. She enjoyed hearing and listening till it just vanished. She may not hear now but she is still listening to the world. She just has to listen a little bit differently. Though I believe she hears a lot more than we do through her listening. And we listen to her as she tells her story. We are captivated by her overcoming the obstacles life brings her way.

I like to think about listening as being like sign language, a language I’m fascinated with. You have to “listen to” the signs, understand what the signs are saying and respond back in sign. It requires watching for signing clues, facial expressions and body language. You sign with your whole body almost.

Listening is vital to any job I think. You need to listen to understand what it is you need to do. Will need to use your listening skills to listen to your clients and understand what they want. I will listen with purpose and recognize the different types of situations that will require different kinds of listening skills. I will listen objectively. I will keep an open mind to what my client requires or wants. I will try to listen constructively. I will think on the information given by my clients to come up with the design they are looking for. I want to listen, not just hear the world around me.
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I survived my first week of riding my bike to work and back home. It's cool at night but not too cold yet. I have my mittens, hat and something to keep my neck warm. Besides my sherpa fleece lined sweetshirt I use as a jacket at work. I'm usually all hot and sweaty by the time I get home.

Mom has been trying to get use to riding her bike to work. She usually ends up walking most of the way to work but rides back home. It's kind of up hill on the way to work. Well enough of one for her. She'll get use to riding sooner or later. And besides it's good exercise for her.

It's funnie how the body knows when you have a day off. I woke up with a sinus attack. I don't know if I'd call it a Sinus cold. It's mostly a headache right now with drainage. It makes it hard to concentrate or to breath okay though.

I was buried in memories today. My sister wanted copies of some pictures. I hunted them down and scanned them for her. A long with a zillion others. It's neat to see the old clothes and hair styles we sported way back then.

Think I'll go vegetate and watch a movie. I got 3 school assignments to start tomorrow. Hopefully without the headache I had today!