Reading Don Quijote @ Jardín Ayau – D51

Because we left early today, along with Isa, Pablito, and Grace, we decided to read Don Quijote out loud. We went to the Jardín Ayau and had a pleasant evening, enjoying the wonders of Miguel de Cervantes’ masterwork. We started reading from the beginning that was the prologue, then some sonnets, and finally the first four chapters. Don Quijote is something really enjoyable that leaves you a lot of teachings and anecdotes. It’s the story of human nature so every reader would have his or her own Quijote.

After the reading, we went to the MPC and encountered with Chacho, and with Isa had a very nice dialogue about many topics, including the culture building of the MPC and some fun stories about each of us. It was a very nice time for sharing and knowing a little more of each other. We left at around 8 p.m.

*This is my entry #100!

Nobody’s Morning Meeting and Sharing Time – D47

Today’s morning meeting was a little awkward because nobody was facilitating it. Nevertheless, we took the time to make some announcements and talk about the ways we can help the people that are often missing or getting late. After that and until the end of Agora, we followed yesterday’s sharing activity in order to know each other better. We had a very good bonding time, in which we could get to know each other a little more. There were some emotional moments when Carmen told us how she felt living with her aunt and missing her family, since they don’t live in the city. Another emotional moment was when Pablito shared with us how he became, after being very religious, a nonreligious person, and the causes of that.

Debriefing, now more calmly – D45

The debriefing was very good. It was a nice way to end our stressful day and to gain more energy for tomorrow. We clarified many topics that were wandering and needed to be addressed, and everyone committed to refocus and behave according to our standards. One of the things I liked the most was Isa’s letter regarding the troubles we’ve been having as a group, the reasons she believed to be the causes of these behaviors (which I agreed with, mainly frustration and having too many things on our plate (which is also our fault)), and some recommendations to improve on this. I don’t want to get into too many details, but I can tell you that it was a very productive debriefing. One thing I apologized with was my reaction towards Pablito earlier today, because I was a little angry that everyone wasn’t listening (they were hearing but not listening) and somehow he interrupted me (not precisely when I was speaking but after I asked a question) so I just said to him “No cerote”. I didn’t notice it until someone told me I said that, so I apologized immediately with him and then after in debriefing. Seeing it in retrospective, it’s kind of funny though haha. In conclusion, a very nice way to end up the day. We even ended the debriefing at 7:15 p.m. Carla and Helmuth joined us for this part of the day.

Presenting the Liberty Project and some more of Emerson – D29

After lunch, Isa, Alejo, Pablito, Marce, and I presented our idea on forming a liberty club, and I must say that it didn’t went as we expected. Many of our classmates misinterpreted us in many things of our project and reacted in a negative way towards it. After some intense dialogue, I found it helpful to see other perspectives and actually decided as a group that it would be better to implement some suggestions they gave us and substitute them for what we had before. After the discussion, we were able to improve our project in order to do a better work.

Later, we read some more of Emerson’s essay, which we are finding the true meaning of what Emerson is trying to tell us. I found this essay very interesting and accurate in his ideas. I’m also starting to think that Emerson is quite a libertarian for the way he writes and what he claims on individualism.

Carmen's look during the dialogue

Just dialoguing

How to advance liberty workshop with Alexander McCobin – Saturday 20

SFL Workshop @ Acton MBA

 Just for you to know how much we like liberty, seven of the MPC’ers (Isa, Marce, Mabe, Alejo, Franz, Pablito, and I) went to a workshop this Saturday (Revolution holiday) to a workshop about student group organizing with Alexander McCobin. He told us many useful tips about organizing and spreading the libertarian ideas. Also, we made a brief workshop in which the MPC’ers decided to work as a team to create a club or organization to reach this goal in Guatemala. We concluded we would start a kind-of-club (We don’t know the name yet) and make the Liberty Café. Our goal is to, “Engage others to achieve their own understanding of liberty.” This we would achieve by three major means, Le Sticky Method, a webpage and a fan page, and the Liberty Café. Le Sticky Method consists of creating stickers, buttons, and pins with questions about relevant daily topics such like, The Social Healthcare would fail, want to know how and why? The objective of this is to encourage people to ask you this question and start an important conversation anywhere you are, whether a cafeteria or the street. After this conversation, you can invite them to the Liberty Café and offer them to visit our webpage, in which they may find all resources needed to be prepared for the dialogue tables. These resources would include videos, essays, books, and other important ones. Finally, the Liberty Café consists of round table dialogues about important topics. We found this project very interesting and easy to replicate in other places starting in universities, and we even got contacts from Alexander for funding this project!

Excuses are like elbows...

MPC'ers working as a group

Morning meeting (Pablito) and individual work – D26

For the morning meeting, Pablito showed us a very interesting and touching video about Alice Herz-Sommer, the oldest Holocaust survivor. Her passion for music is impressive, but even more impressive is her willingness to live, in every day of her life. Just enjoying every moment, having no heart feelings or hate for anyone, not even the Germans. Pablito also showed us a page, in which we can find a large number of classic music authors.

Emotional moment watching Alice's video

Here are the video of Alice Herz and the page for classic music.

After the morning meeting we had individual work. To be honest, I didn’t use it as I should, since I procrastinated a lot during this time.