A Massive Storm

Today, the remainder of the class presented their newsworthy articles. Since I presented yesterday, I was able to relax and focus fully on those speaking. An article that really interested me was one that reported on the Saudi Arabian King’s pledge to let women vote by 2015. For these women, it is still against the law to even drive a car, so voting sounds like a huge accomplishment. The King’s pledge, however, only permits women to vote for local government officials. These officials hold absolutely no power. It fascinated me that this king provided the public with the illusion that women’s rights would soon improve, but in reality women won’t gain any legitimate power.

After everyone finished presenting, a guest speaker named Angela Romans came to share with us her experiences as a member of The State Department of Rhode Island. Angela focuses specifically on issues regarding education in Providence, Rhode Island. She seemed interested to hear our options on education and how to best turn around an underperforming school. Angela Romans seems to be doing a fantastic job in her position. Issues regarding education are very hard to solve, but Angela is looking into a wide range of ways to best solve the education crisis in her community.

After lunch, we focused on the importance of ethics in leadership. Much of the time, leaders are forced to make challenging decisions regarding both themselves as well as the entire group. When someone is placed in a position of power, it is essential that they do what is morally correct in order for others to stay happy. Kisa gave each of us a sheet with questions to answer about our choices regarding ethics. At the end of the day, we compared our answers to that of a larger pool of people in the United States. In many areas, our class was less ethical than the larger part of the Country. This was fascinating, but also a little unsettling. We also read fictional stories based off of realistic life experiences. Characters in each story were forced to make a decision based upon their own morals. We discussed what we would do if we were put in a similar situation. Ethics plays a gigantic role in our society and the importance of making good decisions is significant.

I still can’t get over how different the weather is here than in California. When I arrived in class this morning, it was already well above eighty degrees. When I left, the sky was black and the temperature had cooled significantly. Within minutes of leaving the building, heavy rain started to fall. The thunder and lightning was constant. Every few seconds the sky filled with light shortly followed by the tremendous sound of thunder. Fortunately, I arrived back to the dorms before the rain turned into a river falling from the sky. From my dorm room, my roommate and a few friends watched the lighting strike. At one point, I saw a blot hit a building. At its peak, the storm seemed like it would never end, but within an hour the skies had cleared.