“Every End is a New Beginning"

Indeed it is almost time to leave. I am very sad to be leaving Rhode Island and on Saturday, the East Coast. I've been so happy at Brown and I do not want to leave this campus. I can truly picture myself going here for college. But it's time to go back and utilize what we've learned here in our communities.

Action Plans are the most important thing we are focusing on right now. We split into several groups to practice our presentations, focusing on improvements from our fellow peers. It went well, but I realize that I still need to practice a lot more.

Although it may seem like an easy task to talk about the change you want to have in your community, speaking to a crowd it harder than it looks. It's hard to find out what to say when you can't ask your audience directly if they are bored, amused, irritated or content when you're up on the podium. But with the time I've had to practice, I've improved drastically and I can say that it will become easier over time to speak in front of a large audience.

My friend, Tierra, from New Orleans and I!

After the morning practice, we once again got into groups to discuss ethics. When faced with a difficult situation, what choice would you make? What actions and things what you do? Would it be the right or wrong thing? Are you aware of the consequences of our actions? These were some of the questions asked in several hypothetical situations given to us. 

For most of them, I could promptly make my decision while others took me some time to decide what I would do. Would I tell on my best friend that she was smoking on school property when it is illegal to do so? Or would I sympathize with her because she's going through a rough phase in her life? This I was a bit more hesitant about answering, but I finally decided that I would leave her with a warning with a caution that if she were to do it again, I would talk to the principal. Overall, I think I made the right choices. Maybe I couldn't please everyone, but I chose to do what was best for everyone in the situation. 

Leadership is not mean you have to please everyone, but rather it is making a decision and sticking with it until you follow through. It means not being passive, not being aggressive, but being assertive. Consider others before making a final decision but also be decisive about your own ideas as well. 

After lunch, we had a self-defense class which I was really excited about. Michelle was the instructor and she showed several types of moves we can use when we are in a dangerous situation. 

I learned a lot through the program and Michelle mentioned that she has never had to use self-defense in a very dangerous situation. She said that after people take the class, they have a new layer of confidence that can be seen from the outside. Observing her, I could see what she meant and I knew that a guy would not want to mess with her. The empowerment that women obtain through these types of programs are amazing and it encourages them to become women of authority, even in their own survival. 

I've taken a self-defense class for a while at Richmond High School on Fridays through PE. It was only a short-term integrated course and I wish it was longer. However, I will look into self-defense classes once I get back home to take over the year. 

During the evening, we had a final social event, specifically for our house: Harkness House. There was a dance (which I thought would have been nice, but trying to fit 60+ kids in a small, stuffy lounge results in a hot and sweaty room and an unpleasant musty odor.) and a games room in the other lounge. We ended up playing Apples to Apples with several of our Brownie friends. 

It's sad to see everything coming to a close, but the show must go on. I will miss my new friends terribly and hopefully I will see them again one day in the future. My Action Plan is be presented tomorrow and I am both excited and anxious for it. I have prepared myself for this moment. 

On the good side, I am almost done packing! There's no procrastination for me. 

(Pictures will be up tomorrow. The internet is taking so long!) 

Another Fun, Busy Day

We started out the day by discussing the weekend's readings. We began in small groups and moved on to a discussion with the entire group. Kisa asked for a volunteer to facilitate the entire group, but I didn't raise my hand because I had just run our small group meeting. Just my luck - since nobody raised their hand at all, Kisa immediately chose me. I grinned and went up to the front of the class. The discussion went extremely well; I asked several open-ended questions and just directed the flow of conversation towards people who hadn't spoken up much before. Kisa stopped us when we ran out of time, and later she joked that I should be the one running the class!

Later we watched a short film in which young black children were shown two dolls - one black, one white - and asked to choose which one was better behaved, smarter, and prettier. In 15 out of 21 cases, the children picked the white doll. The clip illustrated how stereotypes become internalized both by those who are stereotyped and the rest of society.

The rest of class time was spent at the computer stations about a block away from our classroom. I finished all of my monologue, and I only have to rehearse to make sure that it's smooth. I learned a lot more about Rigoberta Menchu. I never knew that Spanish wasn't actually her first language, though she lived in Guatemala. She was Mayan, so she learned an indigenous dialect before Spanish. It shows that even if you have language barriers, you should still believe in yourself and your dreams. It was very nice to be able to use the practically new computers just by logging in with my Brown ID. I also quickly met with Kisa in order to go over my Action Plan once again. She thought it was a great idea, and I can't wait to present my idea to the panel on Friday. The whole process of research, preparation, and presentation will be exciting!

The evening activity consisted of watching a movie called "Iron Jawed Angels" about the women's suffrage movement. The pictures above show us getting ready to walk to the movie.

The movie was lots of fun. The soundtrack didn't seem to go with the movie, but it really brought my attention to how much the early women's rights pioneers truly struggled to gain what we have now. It's striking that only about 60-70% of women now utilize those rights to actually vote. I think that everyone who can should try to participate fully in our democracy.

When I was about to take a shower, I realized that I was almost out of clean clothes. I didn't want to forget to do laundry tomorrow, so I went down to the basement with Selene so that we could combine our loads. Unfortunately, the card reader connected to the washing machines was broken. We tried going into other dorms to do our laundry there, but we couldn't get in, and anyways the people who lived there said that their card readers were broken too. So we scrounged and exchanged money with people to finally get enough change to wash and dry two loads.

Today was a very productive yet enjoyable day. I hope tomorrow is just as good.

College life?

Today and last night has been crazy as in how others act in this parent free life style. This makes me wonder if they act like that regularly. I never imagined that the students here would act or be that way. I was just shocked.

Class today was great. We learned about public speaking in the later part of the morning session and in the afternoon session from Jen. In the afternoon session, we had to give presentations with about a minute of preparation in smaller groups.

For my first presentation I talked about a way to fight obesity by making nutrition a required class in elementary school. Kisa who was facilitating our group said we could talk about anything. For my second presentation in front of two groups and later the whole class, I talked about something I really knew about- the four periods of European piano classical music. I tried to keep it very short to not bore my audience. But I find such classifications fascinating. When I listen to a classical piano piece, I try to place it in Baroque, Classical, Romantic, or Modern.

Tonight the Woman and Leadership class had a Diversity activity. For the first activity the two facilitators put different colored stickers on all of the students and told us to divide in groups without talking. I thought that the point of the game was to divide by the color of the dot on our foreheads. With my eyes closed, I tried to imagine how it would work out and how I could react in these situations. Dividing in groups went smoothly. Afterwards, the facilitators left the exercises up to our interpretation. Then we played two silent games to be open and share secrets.

The games were very intense. For the first game, we were to respond to a yes or no very personal question by stepping in wards or staying put. Then we were asked to see where others stood and how it felt to be in either place. The last game was where we were to write our secrete anonymously. Our secretes were then read aloud by the two facilitators. I did not enjoy it at all. I have no problem listening to others but I do not like telling others about myself or how I am feeling.

Between the two different silent games we played a game as to how we identified ourselves. There were three questions. What do we most identify ourselves with most and least and what makes us fill privileged. I went to religion, then international status, and then religion again.

I think that people often mix up race with culture. It is culture, not race that defines a person. Ironically, a lot of anti-racial programs and sayings are counterproductive. By dividing things by race statically, we say we are different because of our color. The saying “We are different on the outside but the same within” is very counterproductive. We point out that we are different in how we look when we are truly more different in our personalities.

Tomorrow we have a ropes course that is to build trust and teamwork with my classmates.