First Day of My Second Year

September 26, 2013

My first day of my second year at the MPC was an incredible experience. I hadn’t realized how much I missed going to class, seeing my classmates and my professors until I actually got there. My day started with a great breakfast with everyone, which I enjoyed and later there was a talk about Liberal Arts. I think that this talk is a great way to start the semester, especially for the newcomers; it is just the kind of information and reassurance that one wants to hear once entering the MPC or starting something new.

Another thing that I really enjoyed was having to meet all of the students, old or new, and say something unique about ourselves. I thought it was interesting to greet my old classmates as well as the new ones. I learned that even though I have been with my peers for a year, there are still thing to learn about them, and things that can surprise you. I also thought this activity was a great way to get to know the newcomers and to get them more comfortable with the MPC environment.

I do have to say though, that my greatest “adventure” of the day was doing a small play on Huckleberry Finn. This is where I realized that I had really missed the MPC, we all got together in a circle and started discussing the book and how the play should be done. I was glad to see that, even though we had a long vacation, our rubrics still remained and still applied. Another thing I learned during this activity was that applying advices from the books in our former semesters work, and that The Well Educated mind does give good advice. While I read Huckleberry Finn, I wrote a sentence or two describing the main events of each chapter and a guide to the books characters. This really came in handy, for me and for the activity. We read my notes out loud and got a great deal of the play out of those. I was also very glad to see the energy and emotion that my classmates where putting into doing the play. Well, I got to act as Huckleberry Finn (maybe because of my southern accent), and I had a blast doing it. I actually believe that it all turned out well, except for the fact that we went about a minute over time. I guess we all still have to work on our time management skills.

Our last activity was going to Ropes (cuerdas) and doing two exercises. I was really amazed at how quickly we managed to solve the first one. I think we get the idea of “Thinking outside the box” quite well. Our second activity was a little bit harder; I had already done the exercise so I had to keep my ideas, in order to let the rest be a little creative. This was a little hard for me. It is hard to see people struggle trying to solve something and you know the answer to it, but I know it was for their best that I didn’t say anything. My classmates still managed to solve the exercise, and in a totally different form from which I had solved it before. It’s really amazing to see the ideas that everyone comes up with. Although at times I felt it got a little chaotic, I still felt that we all sought  each other’s help and supported others ideas.

My greatest lesson today was that I am really happy where I am and that I am glad I joined the MPC.