Majo’s Morning Meeting – D57

Today’s facilitator for the morning meeting was Majo. She showed us this campaign called Acción MOB, originated in Guatemala that tries to create consciousness on the power of each one of us to change the people that surround us one action at a time. It’s really cool! We also watched some videos, all of them very motivational. Here are the following links:

Facebook Page of Acción MOB, Youtube Channel of Acción MOB, Life Vest Inside: Kindness Boomerang, MOVE, EAT, LEARN

Also, just for you to have fun, I’ll leave this video called El Estilo de Peter la Anguila. It’s hilarious!

Having some fun and “Workshop” – D54

After performing arts, we had some individual work and just before we had the workshop Bert planned for us at 4 p.m. we played some football and have fun at the Jardín Ayau. I was a team with Isa (we won of course), and Carmen, Pablito, and Franz were the other team.

For the workshop, first Bert showed us what we had to do for next week in order to deliver successfully our portfolio. The instructions were as follows:

•         Put yourself on the map
• List the readings and commentary you still have to complete.
• Write a guide to your documentation, highlighting for the reader certain features and content that represents your learning this term.
• Make a daily plan to recover and complete any work by February 4^th, 2013.
• Choose a chapter of one of our books that is particularly meaningful to you to present to the group on Thursday, December 13, 2012.
• Friday celebration at Kyle’s Library Project.

Later, we got into our groups of three and made two moral systems of some author Bert mentioned but I don’t quite remember. Here is the picture of how we divided the virtues and vices. We were close to made the two systems as the author made them, but here is the comparison for you to judge.

Finally, Bert gave us the Dialogue Rubric of the juniors (16-year-old students) at School of the Woods. It’s very interesting how many similarities we found with our rubric, and of course we would grab some ideas to incorporate to our rules. We talked about this rubric and our thoughts on it. Nothing really interesting happened to be honest. So far for today (now it’s 6:10 p.m.) Along with Alejo we stayed playing football-tenis at an improvised court in the individual work room. The match was close (51-47), but I lost. We left at 7 p.m. 

Thanksgiving Lunch and Debriefing – D48

After a tough week, we got a little relief by having a Thanksgiving lunch. We invited the people who are supporting us and have been close to us, those are, Giancarlo Ibargüen, Helmuth Chávez, Carla Hess, Kassandra Rugg, Kyle Passarelli, Dylan Evans, Gabriel Calzada, Juanma Bonifasi, Daniel Herbruger, Adrián Ravier, Tony Ung, Kira Martins, and Ana Isa Gadala. We also invited Amable Sánchez, Sam Bonis, Moris Polanco, and Zach Caceres, but they couldn’t join us for lunch. Of course, all MPC’ers were there as well as Bert and Ingrid. We had a great time eating a lot of food and having great conversations. I sat with Giancarlo, Juanma, Mabe, and Alejo, and we had a nice conversation about knowledge, the mind, psychology, the MPC, ants, economics, freedom, and the history of Thanksgiving (it started as a celebration of private property and freedom!). Everything went great and as planned, and everybody loved the sweet potatoes with marshmallows and nuts I brought!

For the debriefing, we read what everybody wrote on our Thanksgiving tree (I’m thankful for…), had some laughs, and talked about the good things of this day. Nice way to end the week…

My Dreams

A few weeks ago, I took a seminar in which we discussed the ideas of John Kekes in his book, "The Examined Life". One of the main questions our moderator asked us was what do we want our contribution to the world to be. When I was supposed to answer to that question, I couldn’t answer it. I did say something about improving the public functioning of my country, but the truth was that I didn’t know yet what could be a contribution worth pursuing my whole life. I understand a bit more now about what must be our contribution to the world or the mission of our life.

Wolfgang von Goethe once said: “Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.” The reason I couldn’t answer to that question was because what I want to do in my life is to accomplish as many of my dreams and goals as I can, and in the process of fulfilling my own dreams, I’m sure there would be a lot of positive externalities to the people around me and to the world in general. As I interpret Goethe’s quote, our capacity to accomplish what we want comes within us and not from any external cause. So, I could say I want to become a successful entrepreneur, the president of Guatemala, read and discuss as many books as I can, and also write some too, have a beautiful family, and retire at an early age; which is true in all of these cases, but everything one does is in order to live happier every day. I don’t know yet if these things would make me happier than I was before accomplishing them. I think and hope it will, but that I will only be able to see by pursuing my goals honestly. I dream that when I’ll be old, I could see back in my life and have no regrets of what I’ve done. I dream of being happy and satisfied of what I have achieved and be able to say that if I have to live once again, I wouldn’t change anything.

First day at MPC – D1

The day finally arrived. After happiness, skepticism, joy, anxiety, and excitement, it was our first day at the Michael Polanyi College. The day started perfectly. I woke up around 5:15 a.m. and was at the College just 10 minutes before 7 a.m. We all had breakfast together and just chat, getting to know each other a little better. There were a few students who I already knew and of course many others that I was seeing for the first time. Also there was Bert and Ingrid, our mentors throughout this journey. After breakfast, we made a dynamic about the 7 dispositions, questioning, and habits of mind we will be working through the next three years. It was interesting to see how different opinions were given although we only knew each other minutes before. Then, Bert gave us our “survival kit” for the MPC, which contained play dough, a couple of laces, a small Rubik’s cube, tissues (for cleaning the future tears I assume), a notebook, a pencil, an eraser, and post-its. We then, discussed the use of each element in our survival kit and gave a true meaning to each of them, which at first seem to be random objects. 

Later, we read our first assignment, a two-minute speech about our dreams. We also had to read before this day "Let your life speak", by Parker Palmer. This book is about finding your true vocation, your mission in this world, the meaning of your life. It was great that we started the MPC doing this, because this way you can get to know each member a little more, you can share your dreams and passions, and start building a culture of respect and support toward the mission everyone has. By the way, here is my speech!

On the afternoon, we saw the documentary, "Anatomy of a dancer", about the life of Gene Kelly, one of the best dancers in the XX century. To be honest, before watching this film I didn’t like nor appreciate too much dancing, but something changed my mind after this film. It was Gene’s passion for everything related to dancing. Dancing was his world, his life. It made me wonder if people could really find their true vocation and passion, as Parker Palmer’s book is about. I wonder how many people live without ever finding what’s their true vocation and only do what they think society think they should do, such as getting into college, finding a nice work that probably they don’t like but that pays enough to live well, creating a family, and settling for the rest of their life. What about what they like? Have they forgotten what is really their passion? Have they lost their creativity and settle with how the world “needs” them to be? Are they happy? Will they ever be happy? I don’t know any of those questions, but I certainly know that I don’t want to become one of them. I want to live every day of my life doing what I am passionate for. I want to explore my creativity, grow my intellect, and be really good at what I do, fulfilling my goals and dreams throughout my life.

So, this is how my day ended, a little tired but good tired. Like those days you know you are productive and feel no regrets at all of having wasted not a single moment of your day.