Realizations and Revelations

This morning I got up a little bit early so I could get a head start on the assignments for the day. I knew that I would be super busy, I had 7 hours of classes and mandatory workshops, so I wanted to get ahead. I was able to come up with some ideas for a paper that is due Thursday so I was able to work a lot on that.

I went to breakfast and

then headed off to class. Since I got to class early I was able to ask a few questions about my essay before we had to begin. In the morning we did a very engaging activity where we split up into two groups and each group was assigned a gender. These groups had to come up with an extensive list of stereotypes and expectations that come with each gender. After we came up with our lists we were assigned to come up with skits that represented each gender with all of the stereotypes included. Our group split up into three sections. One represented teenage girls, one represented thirty year olds, and one represented middle age women. These skits were a lot of fun to put on but a little disturbing to watch because of the correlations of them with everyday reality.

After the skits we discussed the readings and videos from the night before, which dealt with intersex people. It was very interesting to examine these individuals places in society and how my classmates opinions differed from each other.

I got take out lunch and ate it on the Main Green with two of my new friends Tyler and Phoebe. We talked about our schools and also a little about the paper that is due tomorrow.

In the afternoon portion of our class we watched a movie called Miss Representation. I highly recommend it to everybody. It was extremely interesting and really opened up my eyes to the discrimination that many women face in society. I will not go into too much detail about the content of the actual movie because I think that you should all watch it on your own. For me, watching this movie was a realization of how little I know and have learned about gender discrimination and how much it interests me. We also had a very thoughtful discussion and analysis and I learned that many people felt very similar to me about the movie.

Office Hours

We had an hour before we had a Diversity workshop so I tried to spend it all on my assignments. The workshop was very interesting because everyone was super open about sharing their stories.  It was also a whole realization for me about what I am most conscious of in terms of my own make up.

Finally I had dinner and went back to the dorms. I worked on my paper then went to office hours with my TA. This was super helpful because it helped me focus on my paper. She was also able to help me with the citations and making sure that my ideas are on the right track. I cannot wait for the challenge course tomorrow and to bond more with my class.