Ka-Pow Thursday!!!

It is sad for me to know that tomorrow I will be leaving Rhode Island, Provindence, and head back home, but it also brings great joy to my heart that tomorrow I will see my family after three long weeks of being away from them.

We began class by splitting into gruops and giving mock speeches in front of our classmates in order to prepare us for our Grand speech tomorrow. At first I was very confident in myself and thought I had everything down and ready, but to my surprise I was not prepared at all. My mind went blank and everything that I had to say wouldnt come out of my mouth. The good thing was that my gruop helped me out through my blank moment and asked me questions to guide me through the whole speech. Once I finished I felt better and more prepared. Once evryone was finished Kisa split us into different gruops again and asked us to discuss about the article that we were assigned to read for homework.

The article, The Supergirl Syndrome, was about how young girls are pressured to live up to the expectations of being The Supergirl, a girl who is perfect or lives up to the expectations of everyone. In other words she is the ideal girl of the world. As my group disscussed about this article, we noticed that we all believed that the term of "supergirl" or "perfectionist' only bring harm to young women instead of encourageing girls to try to be the best they can be. We also disscussed how no one is perfect in this world and that people that seem to be perfect are only that way, because they learned from the mistakes, and learned from them. I learned from this article that girls should live up to their own expectations and not others', because when they try to live up to others' expectations they only put pressure on themselves and dont live a happy life.

Learning About Self-Defense

Ms. Michelle Nuey

After lunch instead of going back to our classroom we went to a building called Petteruti. There we were told by Kisa that we would recieve an intro to self-defense class. I was very excited to hear this, because I had never taken a class of self-defense and really wanted to learn what I could do in order to protect/defend myself. We began with Elisha introducing the instructor, Michelle Nuey. She has been giving classes of self-defense for 11 years and is currently working at Brown. Ms. Nuey began by telling us that self-defense in 90% of risk reduction, which means that we are not there to focus on attcking or learning how to fight back, but to be aware of what to do in a certain situation where our life is at risk or if we are ever assulted. She mentioned that we should make it clear to a person, who we dont know very well or is making us feel uncomfortable, of where our personal space is. She told us that we should always put out hand out and say no to a person who tries to cross out personal space line.

Another issue that Ms. Nuey covered was the importance of not resisting or trying too fight back to an assult, because instead of making the situation better we are acctually putting our life in at risk. After she gave us the lesson about what self-defense is really all about, the real action began. She showed us blocking and stricking techniques.

One of the techniques that I really enjoyed was a twirl one that realeases you from someone who is invading your personal space even after you have told them to back off or stay away. In this technique the point is to get free from the agressor and make him move away from you. I have posted a video of me practicing this technique with Iris.

Learning about self-defense has made me more aware of my suroundings and has taught me the importance of being what to do when facing a situation where I am being a victim of assult.

Putting in Practice the Skills We Learned

Today was also the last time we had community time. I had a really nice time and was even surprised and touched to hear how some of the girls pointed out that I inspired them to do or make certain decisions throughout the course. I also enjoyed hearing the girls tell each other what made them leaders and why they were such great persons.

I am going to miss Brown, my RA, Kisa, class and especially all of the friends that I made throughout this course.