Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Experience Gained, Leveling Up!

Left to Right. Top: Maria, Cynthia, Sierra, Magaly, Kisa
Bottom: Me, Jagjeet, Yeonsoo, Muang
This morning I woke up at 7:40 AM, feeling less tired than yesterday. It was all thanks to Maria, Cynthia, and Yeonsoo who did the deed to knock on my door. This morning, we decided to meet up together a little earlier because we wanted to avoid the huge line at the cafeteria. Maria, Yeonsoo, Cynthia, Muang, Magaly, and I decided to go to the V Dub to eat because it was closer to our Listening Workshop. The walk to V Dub was a good 10 minutes, and the funniest part of going there was forgetting to use our I.D. We were trying to open the doors, but of course they were locked. A nice student opened the door for us and we all went in. Surprisingly, the line wasn't as long as I perceived it to be. I had eggs, french toast, and sausages. The eggs were as bland as always, but the sausage tasted like hot links. Delicious~! We took our time eating breakfast today, since we had an extra 30 minutes until the workshop, and left the V Dub when the line began to get long. Our NEMOW cohort met up at the V Dub to make our way to the Listening Workshop. The class where the workshop was located looked very nice. At first everyone from the W&L course got together in the class, and soon people from the Social Justice course came in. It was funny because I saw Yasmin there. I yelled "hey" to her, and she said "hey" back. I can't believe that we are roommates because she is incredible. The Listening Workshop was fun, and I was able to meet new people. Kisa Takesue, the speaker, was originally the W&L Professor. My first impression of her was how nice and friendly she is. Being around her made me feel like family. Our workshop consisted of us learning about the nonverbal language: the positive and negative types of body language, open-ended and closed-ended questions, and summarizing and reflecting. We periodically worked in partners to improve our skill, and see our flaws. I worked with Savanna at first, and I soon worked with a Social Justice student, Phuong Khanh. She is from Vietnam, and we instantly connected. We talked about how we haven't met a single Vietnamese person yet. It was fun talking to her and learning how she got to find this program. We promised each other that we would see each other later on.
My New Buddy!
The NEMOW ate at the V Dub again since it was close by. Today the cafeteria were serving burgers and fries, and that's what we all got. After lunch we went around campus and soon made it to class. Today in class, we discussed about the texts that were assigned for homework. The text talked about stereotypes and the cycle of socialization. The cycle of socialization continues into something intersects the cycle and stops it. After talking about the texts, we watched a video about single stories featuring Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It was interesting to watch how society's dominant group(s) are able to control multiple factors of our lives. My favorite part of class was when we did more partner work. We were given a stack of cards and had to choose from the pile. After everyone chose a card, Dean Almandraz told us to meet up with our partner who had the same number as us. It was a coincidence to find out that my partner was the one and only Maria. It was funny to find her because we were literally trying to find each other. We both sat acrossed each other and Dean Almandrez began the activity. She was going to ask us questions and we had to do our best to answer them. The questions were, who I am, who we pretend to be, and who do you think I am. I liked listening to her answers, but I believe we can both agree that the last question was heartfelt. Maria and I exchanged answers about what we thought about each other. I was about to choke up and cry afterwards. I believe I was able to make a stronger connection with her, but at the same time, we both agreed that we wanted to meet the others.

Strawberry and Smores Cupcake
A few hours after class, we waited for Jenny to take us to a cafe. The cafe we went to was called Duck & Bunny. It was a patisserie, with cupcakes being their specialty. Their cupcakes were pretty and delicious as well. I was a bit worried to be eating cupcakes because I was scared that dinner will not fit in my stomach. The cupcakes were displayed very nicely, as I said before, under the counter. I decided to get the smores cupcake because it had marshmallows on it. It was delicious and I was able to split the cupcake with Yeonsoo, who got the strawberry cupcake. This cafe had a detailed interior, but what I was not pleased with was the flies. For me, flies make me lose my appetite so I felt disgusted when eating. It was fine when I ate the cupcakes and had my milk with it. After finishing our cupcakes, we went back to the campus and straight for the Ratty. Jenny was going to buy us laundry cards for tomorrow, and that took a while. It was pretty humid walking over to the dining hall, so I wanted to quickly get home and shower. I am glad that we came back home after eating dinner, so now I will be able to be cool. 

What I'm worried for tomorrow is the talk about the action plan. Today we had a short amount of time to talk about our action plans, so we will continue tomorrow. I don't know how my action plan will be perceived as by my fellow classmates. I'm hoping that it will be good. 

1 comment:

  1. Ugh sorry about the flies! Don't worry about your action plan. I'm sure it will be fabulous.

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