Monday - Friday, July 11 - 15
On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, Olivia and I worked at the museum like we did last week. We finished the embroidery box eggs and moved on to more eggs donated from UNC-CH.
On Tuesday, I missed a couple of hours at the museum to go to a two-hour volunteer training session at the LGBT Center of Raleigh. I was kind of nervous at first because I often get anxious during social situations, but I had a good time. The volunteer who trained me was absolutely hilarious and made me feel at ease. He made jokes, spoke in a Scottish accent so thick that he asked me “Is the accent too much? Can you understand what I’m saying?,” and was a great and thorough trainer overall.
On Wednesday, Olivia and I hung out at home since John was not able to go to the museum that day. He was having a heart checkup at Duke in preparation for his heart surgery in early August.
Saturday, July 16
This is the day that I’ve been waiting for an entire year! GSE ALUMNI DAY!!!!! Last summer, I went to Governor’s School East for 6 weeks, and today I got to go back as an alumna. Olivia and I got there at 8:30 and were able to meet up with some friends that we made last year in our Natural Sciences concentration. I was happy to have a conversation with my favorite teacher from last year (which is saying A LOT, because all of my teachers were amazing), who everyone calls Banyas. I also got to talk with the Chemistry teacher, Dan, and one of my science project partners.
After the first hour and fifteen minutes of visiting a few core classes, it was Quad time. My friend Iliana and her group of friends sat down on a blanket on the grassy expanse of the Quad, and I soon joined them. I had a hilarious, in-depth conversation with Iliana, Olivia, and Rachel about different Spanish dialects. Iliana has family in Puerto Rico and Mexico, while Rachel’s mom is from the Dominican Republic, and Olivia and I talked about the unique Spanish of Andalucía in southern Spain. We ate lunch at Jasmin (one of my all-time favorite lunch places, I always get a spicy falafel zaki at this Mediterranean restaurant), which is right across the street from where GSE is at Meredith College.
After lunch, I went with Iliana’s group of friends to a GSE elective. The electives of this summer programs are phenomenal. I cannot quantify how much I learned in my time there last year, going to electives on the Queer Theory, Music Theory, Islam, Linguistics, Institutional Racism, and more. The elective I attended today was called Breaking Stereotypes, and it was a student-led elective designed and taught by an Area 3 class (Area 3 is a group therapy class where you discuss beliefs, current events, and individuals vs. society). Before the elective began, I had a wonderful conversation with a current GSE student, Sheila. She asked me about my experience in Natural Sciences last year, and in return she told me about her time in Social Sciences. After explaining the experiment I did in my Natural Science class comparing different soaps and sanitizers, she told me about a soap that is made from used motor oil. How cool! I could tell that we are similar in our desire to learn more about the world in order to help it become a better place. She talked about how her class had talked about the War on Drugs, mass incarceration, immigration, and so much more. I asked her about Darryl Hunt, who spoke to my GSE class last year about the criminal justice and incarceration systems, and who died this spring. He gave the most important and moving lecture that I heard in my time at GSE. He was in jail for over 19 years for a crime that he did not commit, and after being exonerated he started advocating prison reform and helping wrongfully imprisoned people become exonerated and living decent lives after imprisonment. His story, which was shown to us through a documentary last year during a convocation one night, was unbelievable in its pain and injustice. I cannot tell you how many of us students had to quietly cry or sob into our hands that night, and who stood up to give a roaring standing ovation when he entered the auditorium when the documentary ended. After the film, he gave a speech and later took questions and shook hands (mine included, I felt so fortunate to be able to shake the hand of such and incredible human being). My conversation with Sheila that made me feel like I was at GSE again, a place and idea that is the home to my spirit, and where students are free to love knowledge and share ideas.
The elective started with two spoken word poems voicing damaging stereotypes in such a beautiful and honest way that I got chills. The students leading the elective then had us break into groups and assigned each group a stereotype to discuss. After sharing out the stereotypes, we had a discussion about personal experiences regarding stereotypes. Then, we were split in half, and a group of students and alumni went into another room to have a more individualized discussion. The group of students that stayed in the room included Sheila and Iliana with our shared friend group. One of the student leaders, Isaac (who is awesome), discussed his experiences with stereotypes as a young Colombian man who many people assume to be black or mixed because of his physical appearance. As the discussion went on and shifted from race to gender and sexual orientation, Sheila’s friend mentioned machismo, which is a patriarchal family system prevalent in Hispanic culture. It was so cool to see that word spark a deep conversation between Isaac, Sheila and her friend, Iliana, and Rachel about that part of Hispanic culture. Isaac said, “I, I love Hispanic culture, I really do, but I hate machismo.” There was a perk to understanding Spanish as they had that conversation, after which they apologized to the people not involved to the discussion for going on a spontaneous rant about something which many people did not understand. But Isaac soon explained what machismo is to everyone, and then the discussion became something that everyone could learn from. We soon transitioned into coming up with characteristics for the “perfect” woman and man. Then, the group gave a list of words that people have called women and men who do not fit those characteristics. This exercise brought to light the impossible molds that men and women try to fit themselves in, and the damage that social standards have on people.
After the wonderful elective, all of the GSE alumni went to a convocation and said goodbye. Olivia and I soon returned, as did Iliana and Rachel, to see an instrumental music performance performed by current GSE students. The performance was breathtaking. Afterward, in the pouring rain, Olivia and I drove to the house of one of Iliana’s friends. There, we all played Uno and had moving conversations about social hierarchy, Durham, GSE, and more until almost midnight. I could not have imagined a more perfect GSE Alumni Day!
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