martes, 17 de noviembre de 2009

Week 15th - The Great Activity

I actually enjoyed the activity we had today. To start with, this week Lorena and her team made a really fun activity and we went outside in order to complete it. First we made teams of three people and tied our legs to each other and walk to a certain place. Then we had to find as many words as possible in a crossword and afterwards rest on the grass and take some time in order to clear our mind and visualize the people that we love and care.

The part that I liked the most started afterwards. We were give two candies and were told to keep them and don’t eat them. We gave those candies to another person and told them why we were doing so. What I found out in this activity is that the candy really did not matter, what really matters is our friendship as a class and as a group and this kind of activities unite us even more, nice job!

The communication during this activity was great and I like how everyone cooperated and made this activity fun. It would be hard to imagine doing this kind of stuff at the beginning of the semester but I think that we had gone a long way and learned some very useful knowledge :)

martes, 10 de noviembre de 2009

Week 14th – 3rd Test

Today I had one of the most challenging tests I ever had in leadership class.
The class was divided into two teams and we were separated. We had to build a bridge, and every team must build half of it so it would be easy to unite. The problem here was that our half part must be symmetric with the other half in color and shape. Every four minutes a representative from both teams talked and another person listened. I got a chance to listen and then talk.
There was some knowledge learned from doing this test.
1. Keep everything as simple as possible (don’t try to do complex stuff)
2. Generate a common code
3. Make sure the message is delivered correctly.
4. The discussions that are generated outside must be delivered to the other members.
Since I heard the talk of my friends, and I generated part of the solution, it was easy for me to deliver the right message. After talking to my friends, they agreed that my explanation was good. I’m really happy ^^

Week 13th – “Soñar Despierto” :: Dream awake

My friends and I visited some orphans girls this week from the association “Soñar Despierto”. This experience was great because we did fun activities and the girls were really energetic. I like this kind of stuff because I leave my comfort zone and change routines. I still have a lot of homework to do but this Saturday I felt free from school worries.
I like the way Lorena introduce ourselves and how she started to do small activities like singing and dancing in order to break the ice between us. These activities were fun and at the same time, without even noticing, we got along very well. The rest of the time we spend it doing some activities like guessing “who am I”, listening to some singers and eating lunch and dinner. We spent approximately 5 hours together but I think it was worth it.

lunes, 9 de noviembre de 2009

Week 12- The Test!


What test? OMG, twenty five hard questions in just three minute? Are you serious?
Ok, believe it or not, I had that test. The instructions for that test where that I should first read all the instructions before doing anything...
Instruction 25 said that I should not attempt to do the previews instructions because that would be a waste of time and paper. I notice this instruction (after completing the first four) because there was apparently no logic in the instructions and they were just too annoying (and extremely hard considering the time). Why didn’t I notice this before? I guess I did what I did because I thought the instructions where done (where it said to read all the instructions before...), but what appeared to be problems where actually instructions. I’m glad that I stopped at number four and completed the exercise in about 2 minutes but it could have been better.
What I learned from this exercise is that anywhere we go, or anything we do, we must analyze the situation in that precise time-space in order to have a good input and thus increasing the chances of getting a good response (never sacrifice this time, but also don´t overdo it). This has been done in medicine and rescuers for a long time, why don’t we do the same? If you just follow instructions, then what is the difference between you and a computer program, or robot?
I think we should do the following
1. Analyze the situation. Don’t miss any detail
2. What do I need to do?
3. Why do I need to do it for?
4. What do I gain or lose?
5. Are there any other alternatives, go to step 1 if you need to do so.

These instructions can come in handy in many situations.
I think this thread is getting kind of long... I will stop here for now.
Cya everyone!

Week 11- Conflict


When we are in our community we must generate ideas in order to improve our lifestyle, but what if our ideas don’t match someone else proposal? Do we fight? Discuss? Accept or Talk about them?
This was actually a very fun experiment. We had to protect four items out of a list of ten in a flood simulation. What would you have chosen? Well, the point was that everyone had different arguments because we see reality differently and we could not reach a satisfactory solution (The solution was democratic). Why did we fail? After thinking about it, we discovered that we were so self centered and didn’t really care about the arguments of the other people. Our method for coming up with an answer was wrong too because we were thinking about the items but we forgot to ask about the needs and see the reality from different perspectives.
Now that I did this activity I have learned the importance of finding out what people really thinks and wants before anything else. I think this is one of the most important messages that I have learned so far and it is really useful.

Week 10- Get some honey


We played a game where my classmates were divided into four teams and one person from each team gathered around a desk. On top of this desk there were ten rocks and people were allowed to retrieve as many rocks as they wished. This game consisted of ten rounds. At the end of every round the instructor doubled the amount of rocks without exceeding the amount of ten. When I saw this exercise I rapidly associated it with the method to capture honey where you must leave some honey for the bees. If we think about it for a second we find that the optimum solution is to retrieve 5 rocks every round.
Did we notice the trick in time? In reality it took a long time for everyone to find out. It started to go well in round four, but as the game passed on, people where thinking more selfish but finally in the last round everyone succeeded! (Too bad we took a long time to find this out -_-;;)