Body Sculptures

This is actually from Tuesday march 1 I forgot to journal yesterday but we created sculptures out of people of our network. My network included myself my family, my sorority sisters, my scholarship program, my friends, my social network, and my professional network. With people it was hard to say how they were in relation to me. For example my professional network does sometimes include my friends but I do have a barrier between work and play don't mix but how do you show that. I didn't have anyone move in mine and afterwards we kind of discussed the difficulties in doing this. Everyone will not always listen to or work in the role we may place them in our lives so even when you say this is how this person or network supports me or is involved in my life that may not go both ways or the relationship may be defined in a completely different way. This sounded really easy to do but it was really difficult to me it made me really think about my relationships and how they affect me and what role I play in other peoples or think I play. I think it was good, when Rena asked everyone to act authentically it really gave me a feel for my lifestyle unpredictable but this class made me think more than the others had and I appreciated this.

Lapham Day 1

Today was my first day at Lapham. It was excellent and I can't wait to dive in even more. Rena is focusing on peace and focusing in the prevention groups this week. In order to do so she had them stare "focus on" the ooze tube. First this was done with just watching it for a set amount of time. Then Rena acted as a distractor, prefacing that she would not get to close to anyone but just be really loud and call peoples names to try and get them to get them to pay attention to her. Even after this she said if she did draw their attention that "all was not lost!" all they had to do was "Refocus." The first run of distractions was difficult several students found themselves laughing and exclaimed how hard it was. afterwards they were 4 students chosen to act as distractors although they had the same rule of safety. They were loud, falling, calling their peers names and really trying to help attract attention the first run for the students proved a little easier. For those that it was more difficult for improvement from last time or from the first time was the goal and not perfection. The idea being that in the classroom things will never be this distracting but learning to do it in hard situations would make it easier in easier situations. It was a great group all of them. After every running around and the distractors she used Like Rena has stated in class she focused on the positive behaviors even when other children were being distracted, those who were looking and listening when directions were given was rewarded b y calling their names and caught the negative behaviors' attention.

Attunement

We did the leader activity again alhtough it was remotely harder than the first time becuse as the leader you had to connect with everyone and then gvet them to connect with eachother. i didn't really pick up on subtle changes. AFter the activity we drew pictures of our journeys t oour goal. Even though my picture looked like clocks it was timeless despite the "clocks".

Week 1

Today in class, we received information regarding the In-School violence prevention and Therapy program going on at different schools. Afterwards we did a body check in. I was feeling a little tired at the beginning of the class and doing some stretching helped out a lot. Rena asked us to go around and say through movement how our bodies were feeling. Imitating everybodys movements not only exercised my body but my mind. I was trying to figure out what my classmates were trying to communicate. We repeated the exercise and added sounds with new movements. What was unclear before became crystal. Some were tired, excited, random, silly, and really warmed me up to the group environment. Then we were provided with beautiful colorful scarves. Connecting through movement with the group helped create a comfortable atmosphere for me. When moving by myself I realized that I was unsure and even a little subconscious. Two things this experience shared with me was it is sometimes harder to connect with individuals you are not familiar with. Will they accept your attempt to connect? Will they want to lead or follow? Whose going to end the connection? Another aspect was transferring energies. Upon connecting with several of my classmates who had higher energy shown in their movements than myself then my movements became higher in energy. Cecilia didn't take a scarf and in the discussion afterwards shared how her connection was different. My connections dealt with mimicking my classmates actions and movements but hers were more of compliments and still connecting. It just shows connections can be subtle or explicit but one doesn't disregard the connection or have more of a connection than the other.