Shake, Not Shout

My first henna

Last night, Isabella, one of the RAs at Perkin Halls, drew a henna on my arm. I had to peel the henna off fast because my arm got an allergic reaction to henna. If I left it on for a little longer, I felt like I was going to make another trip to the hospital. That would suck. When I woke up, the pain was gone, whew. 

Walking in the rain yesterday made my shoes wet and it smelled really horrible today. I wished that I had an extra pair of walking shoes, but I don't, so I wore my flats to school today. I planned on washing my shoes in the bathroom today, but I don't have enough time.

In class today, we had a pop quiz just see where we stand after the first week. There were six questions like whats the definition or difference between certain words like gender & sex or privilege. Then, we went around into little groups and talked about topics that we wanted to talk about. If we wanted to leave a conversation, we could leave into another group without asking. There was a law called "Law of two feet" and four principals. The law of two feet meant that you are allowed to walk around into any of the seventeen topics whenever you wanted to. One of the four principals were "when it's over, it's over," which means that you shouldn't bring a topic up after the conversation is over. The conversation ends once you leave.

For lunch, the whole class, including the professor and teacher assistant, went to V Dub. There were enough space for all of us to fit in just two tables because we left for lunch early. Janie showed us a game where you have to think outside of the box. She would use random objects around her like hair ties and pens to make a figure. Then, we had to think outside of the box and answer her question, "how much is this now." It was not the number of objects there were, but the number of fingers she was holding up. However, no one would know if they are looking inside the box. I thought it was interesting how intense and impatient everyone, especially Maria, got when they couldn't figure out what the number was. 

During the second half of the class, we walked around the classroom where there were different pictures taped onto the wall. If we wanted to make a comment about the picture, we would write it down on a sticky note and stick it next to the picture. All of the pictures were interesting in a different way. They all touched the subject of people being sexist to women. Some talked about the accomplishments of many women that inspires other women to do something as great as them. However, these women fail to be recognized as much as men are. There were many comments that I would of never made if I hadn't taken the Women and Leadership at Brown this summer. For an example, there was a picture of a man and a women both shirtless at the beach. They were both the same size, yet the women was criticized for showing skin. It made me wonder when women started to be treated differently as men for the same action. Lastly, I saw a picture of Halloween costumes for men and and for women. The firefighter costume is more realistic with men than women. While men look like a normal firefighter for Halloween, a women firefighter looks like a stripper who shows a lot of skin. I would of never stopped to think about this before. 

 

Magaly's fancy waffles

After class, I walked to my dorm and fell asleep while writing my blog. By the time I woke up, it was already time to eat dinner. For lunch and dinner, Magaly made her own waffles to eat. Maria and Thao got jealous and made some for themselves too. When they ate, they looked like as if they hadn't ate all day. Their addiction to ice cream is now equal to their addiction to waffles. I went to a workshop after dinner with all nine of the ILCers  for people who are first generation in their family to go to college. Before we did any activities, we went over some rules. One rule that really stuck out to me was "shake, not shout." I thought that there would be a deep meaning to it but all it meant was that you should put your phone to vibrate(shake), not sound(shoutWe played the same who are you game that we played in class last week, except we only had one minute to talk. I liked it better the first time we played the game because the point of the game was to not assume things about a person. After the game, our perspectives on a person changes because the things we assumed turn out to be wrong. However, it was hard for me to learn about my partner if I didn't get time to hear most of what she wanted to say. When the workshop was over, I talked to one of the leaders there named Stanley. After our talk, I can really say that I have more hopes for my future. Someone believes in me and that's all that matters.

The picture that I took with a timer