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 :)

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.

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 -_-;;)

9th week- daily life

Once again, I’m writing in this blog, I wonder why...

Do you know who Steve Jobs is? I just found out this week. Man, this person is so great. His life is so great and he has done awesome stuff without a college degree. This means that you don’t need a college degree in order to succeed; you only need knowledge and the spirit to fight.
Our life is so valuable that we must not waste time, Steve lives every day as if it was his last day (there is no way to tell if it is). If a bad thing happens in your life, don´t feel bad and move on doing what you like and have hope that later on it will be good for you.
“A very small degree of hope is sufficient to cause the birth of love”- (Stendhal)

I also noticed that most of the good things that Steve Jobs did came from the fact that he had time to think about his life and he is very persistent. Thinking about this I decided to have the following goal
1. Have enough time to think about my life and what I want to do. Also have enough time to do extracurricular activities. Since I´m still in college, I have decided that 3 hours would be good (I will need to be super efficient in order to do this).

To end this entry, I leave you with Steve Jobs Speech, hope it inspires you :)

8th week – school of the blind

Have you ever been blindfolded and walked around in order to complete some task? This is my second time; the first time was mention earlier in this forum. I don’t know, but I think that I have a great ability to perceive space, and good imagination (this is why I can walk around blindfolded if and only if I know the place).

I notice that when I have to face something new, I tend to do things alone instead of finding the best solution. In another activity that I did I was to build a human bridge. In both activities I found that I can come up with the best answer, but I need to spend extra time, and I can’t find the answer at the moment. I wonder why that is. Do I need to be less nervous? Do I need more practice? Perhaps I need both.

There was another activity where we simulated that we were on a school bus going to six flags, but a terrible accident occurred. (Our eyes were cover and we were on the floor). I notice something interesting; generally we are so overwhelmed by small problems that we don’t pay attention to what is really important to us(including sleeping since I was tired XD).

Later everyone, I have hw to do :P

7th week – Our Turn

This week was our turn to give the leadership class. In my perspective we prepare good activities and gave the class successfully. At the beginning I was a little bit nervous but since I practiced my part and knew everything about it, I felt confident. I think that I need to study more connectors and step out of my comfort zone in order to be a better leader.

Here is a good problem that a team solved by luck :P
You have twelve gold coins. Eleven of them are equal in weight while the other one has different weight. You have a balance to weight them (A can be equal to B, or A can weight more/less than B). How many measurements would you have to do in order to find out which coin is different and tell whether the coin is heavier or lighter?

6th week - Goals

How many times have we set goals but never accomplish them?
This week we watched a video and read the goals of John Goddard. The achievement of this person is amazing. For more info check out http://www.johngoddard.info/life_list.htm

Three important tips from this guy are:
We should not waste time, for time is valuable.
We should start setting goals before we regret it.
Write down your own goals.

For now I have set a list of 30 goals; I still have a long way to go. I have found that generally I don’t give myself time to set goals and that I should start doing so in order to be more efficient.

5th week- The Tests

This week was truly dreadful, who invented the concept of test? OMG, oh well, the good thing is that I feel that I’m learning a lot (I think that learning is better than getting good grades), perhaps this is my best semester ever in that sense.

What about the leadership class test?
As for the leadership class test, it was kind of strange but ok. I had to work with my team to solve some analytical problems. I think that our team did a great job since we thought outside the box and never gave up on any problem. I think we had some organizational problems but we should work them out this semester. We also need to find a strategy that can make us more efficient so we can get better grades.

Ok..., enough about test, lest talk about something else
Today we saw a video of a guy with cancer that was dying but surprisingly he seemed somewhat happy. His conference was not about his condition or his family but instead, he was giving his conference to help us accomplish our dreams and the dreams of other people. There was one sentence that catches my eye. He said that generally walls are there to filter people who don’t want to accomplish their dreams bad enough. Most of the times I think of wall as the end of the road but this person is impressive, by the way, the way he goes “through” the walls is even more impressive.
Now the question becomes how to break these walls. I think that it is extremely hard to break them, but we can find gaps were we can get through by being determined, proactive and think outside the box. If we are proactive we wouldn´t have to waste energies worrying about a thing that already happened or a thing that we don´t have control over, instead we would try to analyze the situation and get a clear picture. After having a clear picture, we could try to think outside the box and think of alternatives ways in order to succeed. Furthermore by being determined we could eventually find the gap that we need by never giving up.

Ok, it is getting somewhat late
Have a great weekend everyone, Cya next week.

4th Week-

Have you ever watched the movie, the Peaceful Warrior? If you have not, I highly recommend you to do so. This movie is about a person who dreams of being a national gymnast but he faces an accident and the confusion of his mind does not help him. The problem with this person named Dan was that his entire life was devoted to only one thing, winning the national competition. When Socrates (a person who is presumably made up by his mind) teach him that he should enjoy what he does instead of going for a lifetime goal that probably would not mean anything for him later on (after winning), he starts to do what he thinks is right. Sometime later he becomes the nation’s champion.

I think that it is great to have a dream and set goals since it helps you and inspires you to grow, but I also think that you should enjoy every minute you have since we are very fortunate to be here therefore we should like what we do or search for a better activity.

In my personal experience I will say that many times I have set a goal of studying Japanese to approve a test. The problem is that sometimes I stop enjoying the moment of studying Japanese so I become extremely inefficient. Other times I have the goal and I enjoy the moment of studying thus I feel that I could do anything and my efficiency greatly improves. So I have to say that we should start doing things because we like them and in case we don’t like them nor dislike them we should think of positive things about our tasks to become more efficient and greatly improve our chance of being successful.

And now I leave you with the next phrase from an Anime Series
君は出来ないんじゃなく、出来ないと思い込んでる だけ...
It is not that you cannot do it, but it is only that you are filled with the idea that you can’t...

Third week-

Paradigms, what are they? Who needs them? LOL

Are good, or are they evil? Well first of all, I will start this entry by defining a paradigm.

A paradigm is basically a set of assumptions or concepts that a person has of the world. Paradigms often blind us of the truth of the world because we think we know “everything”. Furthermore when people make a paradigm of other people or themselves, they can internalize that paradigm and make it their own. For example, if I say “I’m too lazy”, I might start acting as such because I think or other people think that I am so.

So far we have seen that paradigms are bad for us and that we should not use them, but, paradigms are not always bad.

A paradigm can be good when it helps a person to grow or when it enables him to understand a complex situation where you need to have an intuitive knowledge of the subject (like playing chess).

Ok, so are paradigms good or bad?
The answer is neither. What makes it them good or bad are their effects. If you have a paradigm that is biased or has negative influence in your personal growth, then you better stop thinking that way and start thinking about the positive things of that particular situation. On the other hand, if you have a paradigm that helps you in your personal growth or helps you “see” another reality; it is best then to stick with it.

Second Week- Leadership

In this week we talked about biosphere 2. I think that this is a really great and important project since it would be awesome to go visit other planets like mars because someday we could start living on mars. There is water in mars, and it is believed that some bacteria lived there, that is why I think we could go there in the near future. But there are two big problems that I think we need to solve.
As we know, biosphere 2 mission failed and at this moment the results suggests that small, closed ecosystems are vulnerable to unplanned events. In this case they suffer oxygen and food problems but they also suffer conflicts in human interaction.

Why did this happen? They had a physiologist on board, why did they have human interaction problems? I think the answer is complex as well as the ecosystem complexity.

In our class, biosphere 2 is a great example of the human society complexity and it shows us that we must pay more attention to our human relationships in order to have good leadership.