Ice Cream Master

Call me Ice Cream Master Maria

I have now just discovered a new ability of mine earlier this morning; creating a perfect swirl of ice cream. I know, not many people have the ability or talent to these kind of things, but hey I am glad that I am the chosen one. My day started off the usual way, with YeonSoo, all dressed up knocking on my door at the butt crack of dawn. I appreciate her effort in attempting to wake me up though, no complaints.

We all met down the main entrance once again, our regular time at 7:50 AM, and went out for breakfast. Instead of our usual breakfast spot at the Ratty, we decided to switch things up a bit and go for breakfast at the Vdub. The first part of class was located at building Smith 106, right near the Vdub. We met our instructor for that session, Kisa Takesue, who is also a Brown University Alumni. Aside from that, we were also joined by the students of the Social Justice program, so you could say that it was a pretty full. Most of the class time involved partner activities in which we mainly focused on listening. The three important factors that contribute to a great conversation are positive non-verbal movements, open-ended questions, and summarizing and reflecting. Kisa taught us a lot about having great conversations and also showed us the negative ways of talking with one another. My favorite part was pretending to use negative non-verbal movements as my partner, Magaly talked to me. After this session, I quickly learned how even small negative things can contribute to hurting someone feelings when it comes to conversations. Now I feel that I will be able to talk to people easily and understand them more after this session. Hopefully I am able to apply this method more during my stay here at Brown.

Listening Workshop

For the second part of class, we were back at our regular classroom with Dean Almandrez. We analyzed another picture as a warm up for the class. Next we talked about our homework reading assigned the previous day, which was about the cycle of socialization. This cycle listed the 7 social identities: gender, race, age, sexual orientation, religion, economic class, and ability/disability status. The reading showed how we are all born in a specific category that most of us cannot leave or abolish. Our socialization begins when we are born. In the womb, the cycle decides our gender, ability status, age, class, and cultural group. The problem with this is that we are presented in a world with rules, roles, and the structure of oppression that can either lift or bring us down. Stereotypes also play a huge role with oppression and the dominance of a single group. Towards the last fifteen minutes of class, we transitioned on to our action plans. Today was the day to at least get an idea of what we were to do and brainstorm ideas that will help us. Our action plans are not due until next week, but I know that these next few days will go by fast.I think the main problem in my school are those students who are unwilling to learn or simply do not care about their education due to the fear of not making it into college. Because of this, my action plan was to create an incentive or aid system that will motivate these type of students to do better in school, and of course get to college.

A little peace of heaven

At the end of the day, we hung out with Jenny as she took us to The Duck and Bunny Cafe located a couple of blocks near our dorms. The cafe was small but it felt very homely and welcoming once we entered. The best part about the cafe were their cupcakes. They several flavors such as banana nutella, red velvet, smore's, strawberry and cream, raspberry, and even lavender! I must say, the cupcakes were simply delicious! I have never tasted another frosting as good as those cupcakes in the Duck and Bunny Cafe.

It was a chill yet another informative day in class. I'm glad that we were able to spend time with Jenny again and have another get together to relax and share our thoughts. Some of us felt a little homesick, but at the end of the day we just all have to remember that were all just one big family who has each other's back.

Translation: Have a great day!