Cherishing Each Moment at Brown

It is unbelievable that the class is ending soon. One of my classmates at Women and Leadership had said, “Once we go home reality will set in” and I completely agree with it; here at Brown, I have met people who are completely different and understanding and respect you but high school is not the same. 

Today was time to put all our learning into work as an activity. Out first activity was a scavenger hunt. All of us were put in a group. Eve, Julia, Vivian and I were in group number 6. We had 45 minutes to complete the task. As soon as, Dean Almandrez started the timer all of us rushed to get it done soon even though no one said it was a competition. Most of the activity involved asking questions to a stranger. Once we got out, we saw a group of boys walking and we ran to them and requested of them a Wonder Woman pose (that was one of the things in the scavenger hunt). Only two of them agreed and as a photographer of the group, I took pictures for the proof. Many of the men did not know any young female leaders. Some of them instantly replied they were not male feminists when we asked if they consider themselves as a feminist. I enjoyed the whole activity and I felt like a media reporter while asking questions to strangers and taking their pictures. 

Another activity was to read a story and rank the character from 1 to 5, 1 being the worst and 5 being least bad. My group was having difficulties ranking them because in a way all the characters seemed bad. We had 30 minutes to figure this out but we had not ranked all the characters until the last 5 minute. Out list was similar to some other groups. Later, Dean Almandrez told us the real story and it was surprising. None of us thought of the story from that perspective. (To view the first part of story, Click here)
(The real story: Abigail was Gregory's daughter, Ivan was Abigail's brother, Sindbad was Abigail's ex-husband and Slug/Lee was Abigail's mother)

After lunch, we met together for a silent card activity. There was a table for each group (1-6) and the winner had to move up (if in 6, move to 5) and the loser had to move down (if in 5, move down to 6) and each desk had different rules. Throughout the whole game, no one was able to speak. As I never got to move up, I could not experience how it was to play with different rules. I finally had won the game and when it was time for me to move up, the game ended. After the game, people shared how they felt when they had to move to different tables and play with different rules. Some of them told that they were frustrated and it was hard to figure out what was going on while some of them said they just claimed the card and played by the rules they had been assigned earlier. This activity showed us that sometimes, as a leader you will have to play by different rules and it depends on you to change the rules or play with the existing rules.

After class, I went back to my dorm and worked on my Action Plan. There was Zumba going on at the Main Green so I thought I should refresh myself and get out of the dorm. Dean Almandrez was the one teaching us Zumba. I was very off-beat but I tried my best to follow through. Before, I had difficulties as I knew I would not do well but I realized I was there for fun. 

Today was definitely one of the best days at Brown University. From the beginning till the end of the day, I had plenty of fun. It will be hard to leave all this behind. I would love to stay here for some more days but school is starting soon and I have to be back.