Monday, July 21, 2008

The 2nd Monday!

I can't believe that there is only one more week left! There has been just so much to do, learn and see. Today was a pretty "normal" day; at least it feels so natural like I've been in the class all year! The first thing we did was our amazing women presentation. This was an assignment over the weekend, where we had to chose a woman and give a speech about why, who ,and what this person did to make her "amazing". My group, consisting of Kiana, Alison S., Urjita, and myself, decided to choose J.K. Rowling. We basically did a 5 minute presentation covering the four questions that were given on the rubric, which basically stated why did we choose her, what were her accomplishments (the Harry Potter Series), what was her social or political background, and her contributions.
Afterwards we had a presentation about "Community Service and Access to College" by Rosanna Castro. She talked about how "everyone should be on the same page" and about how most first generation students feel that they cannot go to college because of their community, school, peers, and family members. She also stressed that "there should be no complaining unless you will roll up your sleeves and actually do it." I found this quote pretty interesting because it seems like you can only complain if you step up; whereas I normally go with the notion of try not to complain at all. She also gave us some ideas about how to interact with our community; to reach out and look for support in organizations.
In the afternoon, we had assertive skits, where we basically created chose a scenario and portrayed it using the passive, assertive, and aggressive presence. This was really fun and entertaining as each group could not help but laughing! Then we had a presentation from Angela Romans about College 101. I really gained a lot of information here because I had always had many questions about college admissions and how testing affects our applications. This was a very rewarding part of the day for me!

1 comment:

Madeline Kronenberg said...

Jessica,

Another great detailed post.

You are doing a very good job of listening and reporting back to us. I understand your thoughts about "complaining" -- I have come to the conclusion that "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." Not complaining at all can mean a lot of things, too. Not wanting to be negative, not wanting to "own" the problem, etc.

Lots of ways to look at this. It's a good discussion. I glad you got so much good college information and I look forward to your sharing it with others.

Thanks for being so detailed and keeping up on the blogging.