Friday, July 22, 2011

Our 2nd to Final Goodbye

I cried today. I didn’t think it was going to happen, but I really cried today.

Today was our last full day here at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. I love this place so much. Someone from the Brown Session 1 told me that Brown was like his home. He loved it so much and is determined to make it into this great school. I didn’t feel like I had the same passion as he did until today.

I woke up earlier than any other day and was ready for breakfast sooner than I thought. After finishing breakfast, I worked more on my action plan, which was due today at 1:30. During class, we had an unexpected visitor, Ms. La Donna Williams. She participated in our group activities and was a fun addition to our class.

At lunch, Ms. Williams went with Mariko and me to Spats, a small restaurant by the university. We had a great meal of salad, clam chowder, and pizza with mashed potatoes and bacon on it. It was a nice way to celebrate our final lunch.

All the excitement was from after lunch. Class was moved to Faunce Hall, where we did a self-defense workshop. Not only did we learn a couple of useful moves that would help us in case we should find ourselves in a situation of an assault, but we also got a chance to relieve some of the stress we gained throughout the week when we did our self assessments. Apparently, according to my fellow cohorts, I can get pretty scary when I’m defending myself. Heheh.

After class, some friends and I went to Providence Place Mall, where I got my first taste of Dunkin’ Donuts. Not only were the workers really friendly, but also the large Coolatas were definitely worth the 5 dollars. The closest Dunkin’ Donuts to my area is about a 20 minute drive away, but I know that whenever I go there, I will be reminded of the wonderful experience I had with my friends today.

We had another workshop from 7-9. Part one involved my Women and Leadership girls, and we did an activity that involved one girl holding a ball of yarn and, while keeping one bit of the yarn, passing it to another girl and telling the group why you believe that girl is a leader. In the end, the class would make a “web” that connected every girl to each other. I choked up and started crying as I explained to the class how good of a person Marylyn is. As I got into my mini speech, many other girls started crying and the Women and Leadership ladies all had a session of love speeches and emotional breakdowns. We’re all a, as cliché as this may sound, band of sisters, and we’ll always support each other regardless of whether we’re in Hong Kong, China, Boston, Massachusetts, or San Francisco, California.

Melancholy

Today was our last full day. As I walked to class, I felt extremely melancholy about going home. This feeling kept on returning throughout the day, despite all of the interesting things we did in class, including discussing the definition of feminism, assertiveness training, and self defense class. The self defense class was definitely a lot of fun, and it was hilarious to see such sweet girls be so aggressive. Most of all though, it got us to think about how each individual person reacts to aggression, and what each person believes aggression is.

In the nighttime, we had our final leadership workshop. One person started with a ball of yarn, passed it to a girl in the class, and then described why they were a good leader. This ended up creating a “web”, and by the end we were all connected by the same piece of yarn. Our class got extremely emotional, and I realized just how much of an impact we all had on each other, and how much we all broke out of our shells, let our guards down, and truly bonded. At the end we all cut the string and created bracelets, and hopefully I will never have to take it off.
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