Mind, Body and Toilets

Today marked the first day of my Social Justice course at UPENN! I was very excited to go to class, meet my classmates and my professor and begin what we actually came here to do. We met with our RC groups at 8:30 AM and they showed us where our class will be. All day they showed us where stuff is, but tomorrow and for the rest of our time, we're on our own!

We all arrived to the classroom very early and waited for Andrew Lamas, our teacher, to arrive. Our other teacher, Michael Naird, was already there and entertained us while we waited. When he arrived, they introduced ourselves and their assistants (three female graduate students at UPENN.) One of the assistants, Nicole, led a breathing exercise in which we had to sit on our table. Afterwards, we reflected on the exercise which led into a discussion about the mind and body. Throughout the morning lecture we discussed the differences between feeling and thinking, ways of learning (Aristotle versus Plato,) and how oppressers usually know less about the oppressed than the oppressed know about their oppressers. 

We watched videos of philosophers, such as Slavoj Zizek. He had a very interesting theory concerning toilets, using human waste as a metaphor for world issues. In summary, he declared that German's have toilets where the hole into which you flush is in the front so they first examine the "issues" before "flushing them away." French toilets have the hole in the back so their issues are flushed away immediately without really addressing them. American and British toilets are in between; the toilet basin is filled with water so the issues "float around" and are visible, but are usually not inspected/ignored. So, basically we learned that German politics are open and visible to public view, while French politics are closed and confidential and American politics seem open but are in fact pretty secretive. This analogy was a bit vulgar, but it made sense and it was funny. 

After class, we were able to meet with a RC to be brought to the lunch area (it is different than where we eat breakfast and dinner, in a place called the Houston Market) but Audrey, some others and I were deeply engaged in a conversation with Mr. Naird, so we missed that opportunity and had to find the Houston Market on our own. It was raining and a bit difficult to find, but once we found it, it was very rewarding. I had sushi for lunch. After lunch, we made our way back to the class.

In the afternoon, we broke into groups. Audrey and I were assigned into the same group and our leader was named Julia. She led discussions about defining freedom, developed countries and much more. Our group had very deep and insightful talks. I enjoyed it a lot.

After class, which ended a little before 5:00 PM, we had an early dinner and then got in our RC groups again. We did an ice breaker called "Speed Friending" with another group. We stood in opposite lines and had short introductions and conversations with each person for about two minutes until they moved to the left. We then joined the other RC group for a tour of University City, which is the part of Philadelphia that UPENN is in. We learned about lots of places we can go to hang out. I will be exploring more later this week. For tonight, I will be up pretty late reading the entire book we got assigned today for homework! I am about halfway done as of now. Looking forward to tomorrow!