Have you ever been afraid of making the wrong decisions? Well, I’ve had this fear for about one year now and I had no idea why I felt this way until this week. During my psychology class, I opened Purdue University’s official page and I found myself reading the list of undergraduate majors. I skimmed over it a couple times, not being able to find the major I was sure they had; Human Resources Management. After a couple minutes, I came to the conclusion that they didn’t have it. My instant reaction was to email the Purdue’s admission office to make sure there wasn’t any mistake on their website. I patiently waited for their response but sadly, the next day Purdue University confirmed that there wasn’t a mistake. Later that week, I had a meeting with my counselor; Ms. Hibon. We talked about the limitations of the HR major, the biggest one being that very few universities offered it. We discussed the possibility of considering other schools or taking a similar major, such as Management or Business. She did have a point, but I nonetheless I wasn’t willing to let go. Ever since my brother Sebastian left to begin his career in Business at Northeastern University I felt the incrementing pressure of deciding what I would study. Where, when and what. So, at the age of fifteen I started looking for different careers in order to find the one that suited me best. Throughout the process my dad was an incredible aid, he suggested I do an online interests test to see at least what area I was most interested in. People. I had always been interested in working in a big company full of professionals in different fields such as marketing or finance. And that’s when my dad once again came in. Myself being a people person as well as a person interested in business, my dad suggested I research a little more about HR, but truthfully, solely by hearing its name, I already knew it was for me. After becoming slightly more knowledgeable in this area, I have never doubted my choice. I knew this was what I would love and what I wanted to do after graduating college. What I never realized was what a struggle the process would become. My mind was all over the place, considering all of my options, all of my possibilities and over flooding my brain with questions I couldn’t answer right there and then. I thought; “Should I go to Northeastern and do my co-ops in HR? Should I go to Purdue and study Management with a concentration in HR? Should I study Business with a minor in HR? Should I go for a HR major or is that too specific?” These became questions I asked myself every day, but getting the right answer for the main question overall, “how do I know which one of these options will set me in the right path?” was the hardest part. One day as my mind was once again being flooded with all my questions once again I had a realization. I’ve always been quite closed-minded about my decisions. That’s what I do, even though some problems may come from my decisions, I make them work but never let go. --- But I had come to deduct that majoring in HR was definitely not as feasible as I had believed it to be and for the first time I opened my eyes, mind and ears to other people’s suggestions. This is when I began thinking about the time Ms. Hibon suggested changing the major -- but I had been too stubborn to listen to her anyways. I finally became aware of all of the limitations HR brought with it. Finally making the decision to change my major and still attend Purdue because I knew it would still focus on what I want to study. Now I realize this is even better, by choosing a Management major with a concentration in HR, I am opening doors to more companies because I am gaining experience in a wider area so I understand more about the business in general. Thus, having this experience occur at this moment in my life actually helped me a lot for the future. I am now more open to suggestions and changes about my career, always focusing on my dream job, of course. I may not have the exact answers as to what major I am taking or what school I am attending, I just know I’ll study what I love and work hard towards achieving my goal: working in the HR department of a company.
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Have you ever had to memorize like twenty vocabulary words for a test in your freshmen year? Can you remember any of them? Probably not. And that’s exactly the problem. Parents are paying a lot of money for their kids to get a good education but that’s not happening, they are actually paying all this money for their kids to get a report card filled with some numbers that are supposed to define your life. Your life? It may sound like an exaggeration but think about… your school grades define the universities you get accepted to, which defines where you study, which then defines where you take an MBA, which defines where you get a job, which later defines the way you are going to live your entire life. It is a cycle. And the way I see it, those numbers can affect you and your life tremendously. This cycle starts with universities, since they get so many applications every year, the easiest and quickest way to revise them is to organise them by grades and SAT/ACT scores and then actually read and consider the top ones that have higher scores. After that, to make a final decision, they would consider your activities and sports and what else you do apart from academics. Now let’s look at the key part of this, these grades, these numbers, they are the ones that will define if they even consider your application, without those, they won’t even read it. But let me make some clear, it is not that I’m against grades, I believe they are a great guidance to see how somebody is doing in their classes. That’s not the problem, the problem is the power that society has given to them over the years and the effect they have on us. This is what happens, universities will only accept top students with the highest scores so now students will do anything to get these grades. ANYTHING. Have you ever asked someone for help in a homework or to study for a test because you wanted a good grade? Let’s go with a more direct question, have you ever cheated to get a good grade? You don’t need to answer out loud, you and I know exactly what it is. Well, guess what? This occurs on a daily basis because we all want to get the highest grade, we all want to be considered for our dream college and we all want to get a great job and live an extraordinary life, isn’t that right? In fact, my brother’s friend decided to cheat on a very important test, this was the SAT. He basically paid someone to take the test and get him a high score. Why did he do this? Was it because he was lazy that day and he wanted to sleep? Absolutely not! It was because he needed this grade to get into a good college like he wanted, because he knew that the grade was more important than showing his knowledge and his personality, which were both very strong actually. And him being accepted to his dream university actually proves how they just look at the numbers. So, how did we get here? In my opinion, the instructions manual for schools and universities wasn’t very clear on something very important. The reward. The reward of _________ is the grades. But I think everybody got it wrong, the mixed the order and now we think that the reward of grades is getting accepted to college. Well, it isn’t this way, the main factor and the one we are all forgetting about is LEARNING. Why do we go to school? To learn, to explore our passions, to become wiser and knowledgeable every day. We do not go to school to get as many high numbers as we can and a diploma certificate. Nowadays, grades have much more power than the learning experience. And now it is not only with the grades, but also with clubs and sports. Since we all want our application to stand out, we add a thousand clubs to our list of activities and we suddenly learn how to play all the sports just to add that word in the application. We no longer do it because of our passions but because we have to, it is the only way to survive and stand out from the other 20,000 applications. To conclude, I don’t think it is the students that don’t want this learning, I think we all do, the problem is that there are some situations were you have to choose, learning or grades? And we all know which one has more power, which one opens more doors and sadly that’s the one most of us choose. And this doesn’t mean we desperately want the high grade, I think it has become more of a need, we depend on it. So, now what? I know this is a huge topic and that society already has expectations for us and our grades. And I consider myself guilty, guilty because I sometimes go for the grade instead of the learning and because I have participated in an activity just because I wanted to add it to my resume later on. But finally my time of realisation has come and I want to encourage you to think about it, think about how much power you are giving to these numbers. And even if I am one or we are two people that are aware of it, we can still try to change. And maybe in the future, more people will become aware and we can put a stop to it. Since the beginning of the year, we were exploring story telling in class, we learned the elements through short documentaries or films. Then, we were introduced to a new project, it was creating a mini documentary about an NGO o a company we were interested in. As we brainstormed about Peruvian companies, we decided to work with a restaurant, we wanted to try the experience of filming a common environment, with people and delicious food that had a story behind, this is when La Folie came in. We were thinking about a restaurant that stood out, that had a different environment, an unusual one. La Folie was the first one that came to our mind, we knew it had a crazy environment and different and unique food, so we hoped it would have an interesting story behind it, this is why we chose this one. After contacting the owner, Andrea Balta, we scheduled a meeting to tell her a little bit about the project and she instantly agreed to work with us! This is when we started studying La Folie in depth. We wanted to explore the STEPPS from the book Contagious, written by Jonah Berger and apply them in our marketing video. This is when we started researching about the restaurant, to learn more about it and connect it to the STEPPS. After hearing the unique story of La Folie, we were convinced that we wanted to show story and emotion in our video, these were the two STEPPS that really described our company, that's why we chose them. The S from STEPPS belongs to Stories, the last step to make your product contagious. It is pretty simple, people tell stories because of Social Currency, which is the same reason why they share word of mouth, they want to look good to others. Stories are very practical, they are told very quickly and give people the information they need in a way that is easy to remember. Using them is important in making a product contagious because when telling stories, "information travels under the guise of what seems like idle chatter," so it doesn't seem like you are being told boring information about a product or advertising it, it is more like a conversation, where people share their opinions on the product, but the information still gets to the other person. The key elements that we wanted to show were the sisters and the waitress's story. The story behind La Folie is very interesting, it is about two sisters, Andrea and Pilar Balta, who wanted to open a cafe. They decided to make it different, with a unique style. This is when they mixed both of their tastes, in colors but also in food and this is how La Folie started. They studied Hotel Management and Marketing, so their careers were a perfect match for it, making the restaurant have a warm, comfy and homie vibe, making their costumers feel at home. That's how the story of the waitress comes in. There is a waitress that have been working there since the restaurant opened, and this shows loyalty, also how La Folie treats their employees and their costumers like family or close friends, making the environment feel a lot more like a home instead of a regular restaurant. We were able to show these stories in two different ways. For the sisters' story, we used a voice over explaining some key parts of how La Folie started. These are some quotes that we used in our film: "La Folie’s story begins in the year 2008 when Andrea Balta and her sister Pilar decide to start a business together. They began to brainstorm ideas and evaluated their tastes. And because of their complementary careers: hotel management and marketing, it combined well," "La Folie has a mix of modern and old things, the materials and textures are actually a combination of the different tastes of the two sisters," and "the vibe of La Folie is to feel at home. It is to get there and always find something new, a different place that reminds you of your childhood. For you to feel identified with either a sofa or a dessert and for it to be an experience that sharpens the senses." These were accompanied with some images of the environment, the crazy looks, the sisters and the plates to give our viewers the feeling of being there. For the waitress's story, we used an interview. In this case, we showed the waitress in the camera while she was saying "It is nice, I feel comfortable, if not, I wouldn't be here." This gives the audience a more personal side of La Folie, showing a member of their family. The E in STEPPS, emotion, the 3rd step to get contagiousness. Emotions are feelings, it means caring, and "when we care, we share." According to Jonah Berger, "arousal is a state of activation and readiness for action. The heart beats faster and blood pressure rises." When people feel high arousal emotions, such as awe, excitement, anger and anxiety, there are more likely to share. There are also low arousal emotions like contentment or sadness. This is why emotion is so important, because it focuses on feelings, it makes people feel these high arousal emotions and this causes them to share. "Emotions drive people to action." People don't want to get bored, they don't want you to fill them with information, they want you to make them feel. The emotions we wanted to convey in our video were happiness, surprise, excitement and awe. We showed these with the waitress's interview and filming her working in the restaurant, also with a picture of the sisters and Andrea laughing, and finally showing the costumers in the restaurant enjoying a nice meal and sharing a good time with their friends and/or their family. For example, the part where we show the waiters and waitresses singing happy birthday to a man that is there with his family, this transmit excitement, happiness and awe. It makes people feel happy for the birthday man. Or when we show Andrea laughing, this transmits happiness, surprise, awe and excitement, you feel surprised to see the owner of the restaurant so happy, not stressed at all, just enjoying having such a nice restaurant. It makes you happy and excited because you know that the restaurant is full of laughter and that the staff is happy so they are going to treat you well. These short clips transmit a lot of emotion, it makes you happy because you know that there is a place like home waiting for you, with a happy staff that are going to treat you like family. And when people see all of these happy people having a nice experience in La Folie, they want to try it too, they want to feel these emotions as well. So, these were the two main STEPPS we applied to our film. We wanted to make it a very personal video, a video that would get to people's emotions, causing them to go to La Folie, live a nice experience and share their story with other people. The story of La Folie conveys a lot of emotion to the audience and with all the clips we combined to make up our mini documentary, we were able to explore these two STEPPS studied in class in a creative way, that taught us how to actually apply these in real life and the effect on people as well. Applying our marketing knowledge to a promotional video was a great combination, it was both a fun and difficult project, that made us work beyond classroom expectations, working with real companies and dealing with real-life situations. Ecuador, United States, Brazil, Honduras, Colombia, Puerto Rico and Peru, for me this is home. But what exactly is home? I believe it is all the memories we have, the experiences we've lived, our family and our friends. Let me tell you a little bit about my story first... I was born in 1998, and since that moment, I've spent the last 17 years moving around and exploring a little bit of the world. The first place I got to know was Quito, then Miami, then the bonitinho Sao Paulo and after three years, one of the most dangerous cities in the world, San Pedro Sula, then Colombia and after some months, paradise, Puerto Rico, and finally the land of the lomo saltado, Peru! But where am I from? I am not Ecuadorian, nor Brazilian, I can't tell you I feel identified with one country more than another, and the documents can prove this wrong, but I am from all these 7 countries. The “normal” idea of home prevents us from focusing on the present, it makes us afraid of change and it makes us attached to material things. Let's look at what the "normal" idea means. A lot of people believe home is an specific place with specific things, a country, a house, an object and family and friends they've known for their whole life. First of all, why should we focus on the present rather than the future? It is quite simple, to enjoy our lives and live it to the fullest. Let me introduce a very common scenario, you are buying groceries at the supermarket and you run into a friend you haven't seen in a while, you guys talk a little bit about what's going on in your lives and what do you say before saying goodbye? "We should get together one of these days!" Does it sound familiar? And you all know that 90% of these people, don't end up getting together. Why does this happen? Because we are all thinking about the future, we pospone everything for later because we think we are going to have so much time to do afterwards. When it shouldn't be like that, we should live the moment as if there wasn't a later. If you want to get together with a friend, do it now, if you want to travel, do it now, if you've been wanting to do something your whole life, what are you waiting for? Do it now! If we focus on the present, we can accept changes more easily without thinking about it too much, which leads me to my second point. Fear of change, I believe this is something we all have hidden somewhere inside of us. The fear of breaking our routines, of losing something, of starting all over again, nobody desires change, well except for me I guess. I believe change is something good, it allows you to get out of your comfort zone and explore yourself, the people around you and a little bit of the world. If you accept changes, you will live so many experiences that could end up shaping who you are. You can start accepting these changes on your daily life, from ordering a different plate on your favorite restaurant to donating all the clothes you no longer use and need. These are small changes that could affect your life tremendously, by making you less attached to material things, for example. Why is it important for us not to be materialists? I want to ask you a question... Have you ever lost something that was very valuable? It probably hurt right? But... is your life over because of this? Can you live without it? Off course you can! There are many things that have a significant value to us, our friends and our family, but are these more important than the feelings and memories we share with these special people? In my opinion, they are not. Nothing is more important than the abstract things we carry with us, the memories that will last forever, the feelings we have towards someone, because these will stay with us, but objects... they could get lost or broken and we shouldn't allow any part of us to break or get lost along with it. What would happen if your house got burned one day? You would loose all the things inside of it, but would you stay without a home? Off course not! You would build a new house, buy new things and since you have the memories and the people you care around you, you will be at home! So, for me, home is not a place or an object. Like some people say, home is where the heart is, where the memories, the experiences and the people you love are. In other words, home doesn't have to be one single place, it could be 7 countries, just like my home is. I carry so many memories from all these places, that I couldn't choose one. And since I know that changes can affect what my home is, I am open to new experiences because I know that wherever I go, I'll have a home, I can build it. I am not saying you need to move nine times like I did to realize this, that is not my point at all, I am forced to move and accept changes but you can all do it in your own personal way. For example, imagine you have 3 months left in this country, what would you do? I am pretty sure you would focus on the present and enjoy every single moment with the people you care about. Now, to loose that fear of change, you could start by going to a different restaurant than the usual and order a completely different plate, it sounds like a dumb thing to do, but with little steps you can get pretty far. And to become less attached to material things, picture yourself moving to a new house and only being able to take 2 boxes with you, what would you really take? You'll realize how these objects are not as important as they seem. Give it a try, and you'll see how easy it will be to focus on the present, to become less attached to material things and to stop fearing change. Yesterday, my IA was something very different than the usual. It wasn't a blog post, editing, filming or even reading, it was only a question that we needed to answer using pictures. "If your house was burning, what would you take with you?" Maybe it sounds like an easy question for you guys, but for me it was quite a challenge. We were told to take pictures of the first things that came to our mind when reading the question, but what would a picture of nothing look like? Now, off course I would take my family and my dog with me, but they can pretty much do it on their own. The problem came when I needed to think about things, physical objects. I believe there is an explanation of why I don't feel emotionally attached to material things. So, it all began when I was very little and I started to constantly move to different countries. As you may know already, every time you are moving, you have two options: 1. Sell all your things and buy everything again in the new country or 2. Take all of your things in a boat and receive them after 3 months in the new country. My family chose number 2 on the majority of the cases, we chose number 1 only for the first two moves. But how does this relate to the homework question? Well, every time this happened, which was almost every two years, I was separated from all of my things for about 3 months, sometimes it took much more. The first time I had to send my things in a boat, I wanted to take almost my entire room in my bag, but after 9 times, I learned that I did not needed all of that, I really just needed clothes, my laptop for school and my cellphone. Now, ask this question to yourself... Can you buy clothes in almost any part of the world? What about a computer? And a cellphone? I hope you had the same answers as I did because clearly you can find all of these anywhere around the world. Thus, do you need to take them with you or can you replace them with new ones? That's when the emotional part comes in. If you are emotionally attached to a pair of shoes, or some sweater, then you wouldn't leave it and replace it with new ones, would you? In my case though, I don't feel I have this emotional connection with any of my things. Maybe it is because I am used to replacing my things very often or maybe because I have never built such a strong connection with a material object. One clear example of this are houses. We were discussing in class how leaving your house would be really hard, I heard all the experiences from my classmates and how they lived in theirs for 17 years, that's quite a lot! And I differ in this aspect as well, I literally have never lived in one house for more than 2 years, not even in Ecuador where I lived 4. So, for me, leaving a house is not that meaningful since I have never built a strong connection with any and since I've lived so many experiences in each house, they are all spread, not in one. Finally, I don't want you to think I am a cold-hearted person and that I don't get emotionally attached. On the contrary, I feel I am a person that gets easily attached to people and cultures, just not physical objects. As I move all the time, it is now easier for me to adapt to changes and I don't see them as a bad thing. I have become used to letting things from my past go and enjoying the moment, so I now become less attached to materials things and focus more on the emotions, the experiences. Now let's go back to that photo of nothing, picture it on your mind. Now add the images of some unforgettable memories you have from your friends and family, incredible experiences you've had... that's what I would take with me, that's what my photo would look like. What inspired me to write this blog post was this Ted Talk and this website: Less Stuff, More Happiness The Burning House "We may be separated by distance, but never by heart." During my life, I have had many long distance relationships. Because I have moved nine times, I consider myself a dependent in technology. Why is this? Well, every time I had to say goodbye to another friend, I felt pressured to use technology, mainly social media, in order to keep in touch with them and since it has happened so many times, it has become an addiction since I depend on it and could hardly live without it. But recently, I have realized that it is a bigger problem that is not only happening to me but to the rest of the world and it is getting worse every day. The world is becoming dependent on technology as well. They see it as a way to replace real-life experiences, a way to live life in an artificial way without realizing that the experiences are not going to be the same. What they don't know is that this technology can maintain the relationship but it can't replace it, it doesn't even compare to actually living it. This is something I saw on a recent visit from my cousin and my VDP trip to Punta Cana. Last weekend, I returned from Punta Cana and found an amazing surprise. My twin cousin came from Ecuador to visit me for a couple of days. I call her my "twin" cousin because she was born exactly 10 days after me and we were raised together like sisters. The problem came when we were 8 years old and were separated, I moved to Brasil and she stayed in Ecuador. For the past 9 years I have only seen her like 6 times. Can you imagine what it was like to have a best friend in school, in the afternoon and even on the weekends? We were more like sisters, hanging out 24/7. For the past 9 years, our relationship has been based on WhatsApp, Facetime, Skype and one visit per year. And let me tell you something, that one time in the year is priceless, we can't stop talking for one second, we laugh so hard that our stomachs hurt, it is like we were never apart, not even for a day. Even if we changed or our environments did, when we are together, it is all the same. Seeing a person you have such a strong connection with after so many years, feels like going back to a normal routine, going back to homie mode. I saw something similar during my trip... when we arrived at Punta Cana, there were five people that moved away from the prom in the last years and you can't imagine what was the reaction of the whole class when they saw these people, it was crazy! But what called my attention was how quickly it was for it to be back to normal, back to how it used to be when they were in the school. We didn't even talk about what has happened in the past, we were all on the same page, enjoying the moment like it was before. I came to find a theory about this, I believe this happens because of the short amount of time these reunions last. Since you don't see someone for so long, when you finally do, you don't want to waste even one second to go back to the past, you just want to enjoy the little amount of time you have with them because you know they may be gone for a couple of months or years again. I think this is what makes us adapt so quickly to the changes, to the different environments or personalities. On the other hand, I also found a contrast with another experience of my life. I moved from Brazil in 2010, and at the beginning, I would talk to my friends through technology very much but I can tell you that right now, I don't have a strong relationship with them, it got lost in the middle of all this technology. I believe there are two factors that affected this relationship. The first one is that we didn't have access to a developed technology like the one we have now, there wasn't BBM, WhatsApp, Facetime, Instagram, Snapchat and in Brazil they don't use Facebook very much because they used another version called Orkut. So, the only form of communication we had was Skype and MSN Messenger, which after one year, didn't exist basically. And the second factor, which I think is the most important, is that I never visited Brazil and they never visited me, meaning I haven't seen them for more than 5 years. I believe this is truly why our relationship has been weakening more and more, because we can talk using technology one in a while but if we don't see each other, we will keep getting apart. The reason why I can conclude this is because I moved from Ecuador in 2007, that's much more time, but since I have been visiting Ecuador almost every year, my relationship with them is as strong as it was when I lived there or even stronger. Now, I am not saying that we need to visit our friends all over the world all the time, I am just sharing how I see it, how technology can help you maintain a relationship but it will be temporary, it doesn't compare to the actual real-life experience. Seeing somebody in person after so many years has such a greater impact in our lives than talking to them through social media. I think we should take advantage of the advanced technology we have, use it to make our lives better in different aspects, but never, depend on it. I see it as an addiction, when we use it too much, we become dependent and we start replacing some valuable things with it without even noticing, we think that technology will be able to replace some experiences we have, but with time, it will lose its essence. Last week, I was talking to my brother and my parents about college, the most popular topic in my house at the moment. We talked about some possibilities of colleges around the world that I could go to, but after a long chat, another topic came up... what's next? The next thing we were talking about was where I was supposed to go after college, a question that nobody in this world could answer and this is because well, there is no answer.
You see, I've had a crazy life for the past 17 years. this life has consisted in moving country every 2 or 3 years, which has allowed me to know many places, many people and many cultures around the world. Although it's been some unstable years, I wouldn't change this experience for anything in the world. The thing is, I haven't been stable since the day I was born, never. My first move was when I was less than 1-year-old and the last one was one year ago, meaning that I have no idea how it is to settle down in one single place for your whole life. And that's where the first struggle comes in. Home. Where am I going to live when I grow up? Many people don’t worry about this because they are sure they will return to their roots, to their home, to the country where they were born and raised, but in my case, where is home? I was raised in many different countries. I could say I was born in Ecuador, but I moved when I was a little baby, so do I really feel identified with this country? Are these my roots? Definitely not. The second struggle would be stability. What does this mean? For me, it's very hard to define it. The only thing I know about stability is that I want it, but I just wonder if I could maintain it. During my whole life, I have never been stable in one place, I have been more like a nomad, changing my location all the time. So, can I handle stability? Sometimes I just think about how my life would have been if I stayed in Ecuador for the past 17 years, but then I remember how after living a while in a country, my natural instinct is waiting for the next move to happen, I am craving a change. So, will I be able to stay in college for 4 or 5 years? And after college, will I be able to live in one country for the rest of my life? Sounds scary to me. Many people say that home is where family is, and in one aspect, I totally agree. On the other hand, I have never lived in the same country as the rest of my family, meaning my cousins, aunts, grandparents. I see them once per year or every two years. And about my close family, I don't think it would be right to move every time my parents and sisters do so because how am I going to settle in one place and start a life if I keep moving around? Thus, I have no idea what I am going to do after college, I don't even know where I am going to study yet. But the only thing I can say right now is to enjoy the experience that I have been given and get the best out of all the travelling and instability I have been through. Maybe this has been a warm-up, a preparation for what is about to come. I just need to wait until that moment comes. Maybe destiny will lead me to one place, or maybe I will keep being a nomad for the rest of my life... Last week, I made a decision that will supposedly change my whole life. This decision was to drop the Peruvian program. How could this change my whole life? I still don't get it. But for the past 7 days the only thing I've been hearing from my parents, teachers, counselors and even some friends is, "you are closing so many doors for your future." Doors? Closure? Future? What do these words even mean? Well, what they meant is that by dropping this program, I am "closing the door" to all Latin American opportunities, in other words, I won't be able to study in any universities or to even get a job here in LA. In my opinion, this is not 100% valid because then, how do international students study and work here in Peru? I am sure the majority of them weren't in the Peruvian program. But don't get me wrong, this is not a criticism to the Peruvian program, or to the school's faculty, this is not a criticism at all. I just want to share a little bit of what I learned last week through this process of dropping the program. I realized that we take our decisions based on the future. We are not thinking about the moment, we are always thinking ahead, about what's about to come. I think we should all be aware of our future, being able to think long-term is definitely a skill we should all acquire. But of course, like everything else in life, it has a limit. If we have a life, it is to live it and enjoy it as much as we can, not to be worried about what may happen the next day, the next month or even the next year. That's why YOLO exists, a motto that motivates you to do everything you want to do and live the moment. Additionally, I noticed that we are not able to explore our passions and do the things we like because we are too worried about the consequences, about what will happen if... This is not the way it should be! If you like to play the piano and you want to be a professional pianist, then you should take music classes and apply to a university that recognizes this talent. But this is not what normally happens, people think about the future before thinking about themselves. Most of these people that wish to be pianists, end up studying Math, Science, Economics, and English because they want to be successful wealthy men. And many years later, they stop and realize that they grew old and they didn't enjoy their lives like they could have, how they wasted so many years doing things they didn't like, instead of choosing their passions. What happened to YOLO in these cases? The last four years of school are the most stressful years of your life because they make us believe that you have your entire future in your hands, you carry that pressure in your shoulders for so many years that at some point, you break down. Instead of taking the classes you are passionate about for the last years in school, you need to complete the requirements for graduation, that include taking classes you don't really enjoy. And again, all of this because of what? The future. Nowadays, everything we do affect our future. From what we ate for breakfast to who we hung out with that night, it all comes back to you in the future. When are we going to stop and start doing what we like, what we are passionate about? This is something I did last week, I dropped the Peruvian program, not because I had something against it, on the contrary, I actually enjoyed my spanish class. The reason I dropped it was because I am passionate about psychology, it is something I want to do in my future, in college, in my job and in my life. Yes, I may be taking the risk of "closing some doors" right now, but what I really want to do is to live the moment and enjoy my last years of school, my classes, my teachers and my friends. Previously this week, I arrived home at about 10 pm and was hoping to see my whole family to have a little chat like I always do when I get home. I actually found myself entering the most quiet house in Lima. No lights, no sound, nobody walking around, not even my dogs. I checked each room but there was no signal of any alive people. I ended waking up my dad and we had a small conversation. He asked me how I did on my math test that day, and I responded with the truth, terrible. He exploted. "How is that possible? Did you study for it? You are starting the IB! What is going on? You better have some good arguments to defend yourself about this." My answer... ICC.
Interclass Competition... the most important, tense, competitive but fun week of the school year. The best opportunity to bond with your prom, explore your passions and especially, to scream your lungs out. But as everything in life, there are pro and cons, and I believe the problem is not the week itself, but the week before. Preparing the cheer, the mural, decorations, sign-ups, jackets, shirts, these are all things you need to work on way before the actual ICC week, most of them start about 4 weeks before, the first week of the school year. But what makes students so engaged with this event? Well, I believe the answer could be competition, teamwork and passions. The word competition is inspirational, challenging and wakes up the adrenaline inside of us. It's a feeling that can't really be described. Everybody has been through a competitive environment, it is all around us. When you are driving next to a car, you accelerate to make you seem faster; when you see that your friend is at the last page of the test, you instanly speed up to finish first; when you want to get a raise in your salary and there is another partner that wants it too, you start working harder to win and get the salary; it's our instict. Well, ICC has a lot of this. The four high school proms compete each other for a whole week, playing sports, presenting a cheer, painting a mural, doing different activities in arts, music, theater and others. Being under this pressure can affect you in a major way, you are constantly incentivated by the adrenaline and suddenly realize that you can push yourself a little bit to get where you want to get. You start to sacrifice some things because the priority is always ICC. And by "things" I mean schoolwork. "Teamwork makes the dream work." The key for success is teamwork, at least in ICC it is. If you have a united prom, a team, the experience is completely different, they become your family and those five days become the best of your life. In my opinion, teamwork is a main factor of why students are so engaged with the event. The idea is basically that everything you do, will affect your team players, before acting you are thinking of the team, everybody counts and each person makes a difference in the experience. If you fail, the team fails. If you win, it's a win for the whole team. You are thinking not only for yourself but for more than one hundred team players. For example, when you get into the cheer, you are getting yourself into probably the most complicated and stressful 40 hours of your life, but there is no way you can quit at any point because you will be affecting not only the cheer team, but the whole prom, the whole team. This is something that keeps you motivated and pushes yourself a little bit more for the team. But let me tell you something, at the end of the day all of these sacrifices are 101% worth it. And last but not least... the third factor that makes ICC the favorite week of the year is that you can explore your passions, you have choice on what you are doing for the team. It's not like when you are choosing your IB courses, where you are a little limited on the options. Here you can choose what your passions are or what you are good at in order to benefit everybody in the team. This is something that I personally like very much because for my IB courses, I had to choose a science course and this is the subject I am less interested in. I think we should all have the right to study and do what we like and what we are good at. This is why ICC is very engaging for students because they are able to explore their passions without anybody telling them what to do or not do. Competition, teamwork and choice are the key elements of the ICC that are missing in school. It doesn't have to be exactly like it is during the week, it can be adapted for school. For example, having small competitions in the classroom or against classrooms or even against proms, that will incentive students to give their best and push themselves a little bit. When doing school projects, adding some groups and incentivicing teamwork would also make students more engaged with the subject and with school in general. Finally, give students choice, let them choose what they want to write their essay about, allowing them to explore their interests and receiving much better work from them. In a nutshell, incorporating ICC values and traditions to our school would bring much interested and engaged students to the community! Have you ever been attacked by a rat? A couple weeks ago, my answer would have been no as well. It was a cold night, there were about fifty sleeping bags in a small room, but it was more like fifty cocoons on top of each other. It was late at night, we were supposed to be sleeping, but of course, we weren't. Suddenly, the only thing I saw in front of me was the shadow of something round with a long tail jumping up and down on top of a bag, I thought I was already dreaming of something weird. It started running. It was right behind our sleeping bags. Fifty cocoons trying to escape through the same single door. Shouting. Running. Caos.
The last week of July I went to Huaraz, I was doing a religious mission. It was a lot different than what I expected... no bathroom, no cars, no hot food, no internet, no signal. The conditions we had were a little extreme in my opinion. But this opinion quickly changed throughout the week. The day after the rat attack, I was walking around the house we were staying at, and I saw a little girl, that was probably about eight years old, with a baby on her arms, the baby was probably one or two. I came up to her and asked about her mother, she said that she worked from early in the morning until late at night and during the day she had to take care of her little brother. I supposed someone took care of the baby while she went to school for a few hours in the day but got surprised with her answer: "I can't go to school, I stay with him the entire day." This type of answers you don't forget that easily, especially when they are coming from such a smiley and happy little girl. What was I supposed to answer? I still can't figure it out. One of the other days, we walked to another town, to spend a fun day with the kids and go to church with them and their families. When the communion part came, I was just watching how everybody smiled while standing in the line, but suddenly my sight lowered and saw about forty naked feet, but they were nothing like Katy Perry's feet, they had scars, dried blood, dried mud and a lot of dust. Could you imagine yourself walking all day and night without a pair of shoes? And by the way, Huaraz has very low temperatures, it reaches -3-celsius degrees at night. Then, I started to think... Sometimes I complain because my shoes are not high enough, or warm enough, or fashionable enough when there are people that don't even own a pair. And this is a story that really broke my heart. Every day I saw a little girl, she was two years old, she always walked around the house we were staying at, the smile on her face was inspiring. I loved spending time with her, we shared my food, we laughed, we sang, we danced, we ran, it was priceless. Then on the last day, I was told that she didn't have her parents, she lived with some cousins or friends of the family. A two-year-old living basically on her own? Exactly, I had the same reaction. I ended up realising that sometimes you need to have these "shocks" in your life in order to realise who you are, what you own, who you share it with and how lucky you can be. We need these impacts in our lives to start acting and stop focusing your life in your cell phone, the internet, how hot your food is, what car you have and how many pairs of shoes you own. I was incredibly lucky to live this experience, to meet all these amazing kids and families that inspired me so much. Watching all the kids having fun without the use of an iPad or iPhone, just running around, playing with animals, plants and with their friends. I believe that we are so used to live our lives, that we become extremely self-centered and we forget that there are so many people out there that need us. One of the most important rules of life is to put yourself in other's shoes, and we forget to do this quite frequently. But it is a very effective rule, it allows you to step out of your world and enter a whole different life, where you can learn so much and cause a big impact in the world around you. Even the smallest things can cause a big impact, in the end, the rat was able to cause a huge impact in all of our lives, it is a story that I will never forget. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2017
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