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Cafe Polanyi: A place abundant in questions, dialogue and ideas. 

To my surprise, this morning Pablito set up his own french-style cafe in the back terrace of the college. Coffee shop sounds, French music, colorful flowers and a great service were provided in this almost ideal place. 

I had the pleasure of sharing my morning with Marce, Carmen and Lorena. During the meeting Pablito passed a menu to tell us about the structure of his activity. Everyone was to write down a question on a blank piece of paper (anything you could think of!) and then fold it, mix it and take one out in order to have a dialogue with your group to discuss it. 

Our 4 questions were:

1) How would you rather die? Food poisoned at Cafe Polanyi or in a car accident caused by a naked man in the street. (To give a bit of context many students were joking around the fact that there was a naked man yelling at a tree on the way to the university). This was my question and as dumb as it may sound I thought of asking something somewhat random to see my friend's reactions to ridiculous situations. 

2) Why do people like flowers? We spoke about symmetry, our senses and beauty in nature. 

3) What plans do you have for summer? Marce and Carmen are going to the FEE or Atlas Summit, I didn't quite get it. After returning from this trip Marce wants to travel around Guate  (which is awesome! If I can I'll definitely join her) and start up a small business. Carmen is planning on doing some traveling as well and working and Lore wants to spend some quality time with Fer (her husband) and take time for herself since she's been struggling with her health lately. And me, I'll be going to my cousin's graduation in Stanford this June (I'll finally get to know the university!) and it's also a great experience to spend time with my family on my mothers side. After that I'm planning on shooting some short films, or maybe I'll work on some projects with the New Media department at the University. Going to the World Youth Day is also an option (we'll have to see!) It's definitely going to be an awesome and different time, and a very necessary break. 

Our questions weren't as deep as some of the other tables which were matters like: who are you? However I felt that sharing with them and having a dialogue, really on everyday topics, was a refreshing activity. Café Polanyi was just amazing. We left it set up the rest of the day to receive some clases there. Kudos to Pablito for his organization and dedication. He just raised the bar for the Morning Meetings, we'll see when someone reaches this level again. 

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"We wants it. We needs it. Must have the precioussss." 

Today's Drama class was awesome. Everyone except Isa and Alejo presented their monologues. From Richard III from Hamlet to a crazy man in 12 Monkeys, everyone represented their character in a way that surpassed the standard set two weeks ago. I chose Smegol/Gollum's monologue from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers when Smeagol fights Gollum and becomes "free".  

I think people enjoyed the performance, most of the feedback was positive, beginning from me not forgetting the lines, to that it was an honest and serious interpretation, almost similar to the movie. There was also constructive feedback which I really appreciate because it allows me to work on something concrete in order to improve for next time. My voice was not so clear at times and the movement in across the stage needs to be "cleaner" I believe Valerie referred to making it more natural and according to character in a way that's not distracting from what I'm saying. 

Next week we'll have to perform the same monologue as everyone else and see variations in each person's interpretation. I'm looking forward to it!

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Stress much?

Dear Reader, I complain too much but yeah I was stressed. Sorry if this post sounds completely irrelevant and stupid.

Today I felt completely blocked. I did the math and if I want to finish up to book 6 of Euclid for the May 31st deadline I have to complete 9 propositions per day. Doesn't sound impossible but if you add reading and documenting 18 books (Which I'm very behind on), Working at the MPC from 7:00am to 7:00pm twice a week, 7:00am-1:00pm also twice a week, creating a study guide for a class (which I have no idea of how to do), Uploading pictures to the gallery and the MPC website one by one (I love Wix but using the free version has its price), attending Community Service Activities (which I would miss but I've made a commitment and I truly can't  abandon it), creating a presentation on the topics that I would facilitate for next semester, documenting days that I barely remember, and probably things that I haven't mentioned it's just.. AHHHHH!!!! Makes me want to run and quit.

As I told some people: My dream of being a waiter at some point in my life will come sooner than later. I haven't lost hope though and writing my stress down in this blog is a relief. I am kind of angry at the fact that I need to take time to figure out how to make someone's life easier with a study guide and facilitation (that I didn't have) . Seriously, getting a.. post it, or whatever,  informing us that we had to do 6 books of Euclid would've been better than us figuring out by accident (not even because it was posted somewhere) in the middle of the semester. "If you want to do Newton's Principia next semester you need to get to that point". Yeah, how exactly did you think that we were supposed to figure this out? Thanks a lot.

Yesterday we got a paper with clear goals, deadlines, and work due. LOVED IT. Thank you, made my life much better, but next time... (If I even make it to a next time) having that on the first week would make everyone's lives way easier. We're asked to be organized but the program's a mess sometimes. (And if it's not a mess then communication on behalf of the directors certainly is). 

I guess this is what they warned us of when we were told of the whole "pioneers" concept. Not everything is nice and pretty as one imagines. I just wonder how I can do something to work on this issue and make some valuable contribution for the generations to come. Should I sit down with Bert, Ingrid and Karen and talk about this? I know I shouldn't assume but many times it's happened that Bert says "We told you to make a schedule" in a way that makes me feel like my comments shouldn't be put forward and I should be quiet for not doing the work. I don't care anymore, there is uncertainty, too much of it and if communication doesn't improve it will be a "hole in the ship" that will make it sink, I mean it's sinking already. I feel like I don't even have the time to make my point. (Though this problem just gave me an idea for my "study guide".) Having online forms that give feedback, and a CLEAR calendar with due dates and requirements. 

... Now I'm just angry at my terrible writing..... My point is that had I known from the beginning what the requirements were I would just shut up and do the work. It feels as if every time I take some weight off my shoulders someone walks in and lays twice as much on top again. ( I mean, we had our work settled, now it results that we need to work on the webpage to inform students about what the MPC is and facilitate content which, yeah, we haven't even read. In my most honest frustration I'll tell you that sometimes the MPC is just the making of the MPC. Most of the things we say we are aren't happening because we're working on how to give the message of... what we "are". Am I learning? Of course, but leave me alone for some time to get into my actual work!!! If you want to know what the MPC is WAIT or VISIT US. I don't care anymore what you think because... well,  I should get to work now...but seriously. I'll find the words to express whatever this issue is that's bothering me and I'll post a more organized piece of writing. 

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Missing my School Textbook

I've struggled with the section of "Mechanics in the Medieval Period". The book is very much like a book, but then formulas and equations are introduced in a way that's so hard for me to follow that it makes me miss my old high school textbooks. I used to complain about them but I realize now that they were much easier to follow with their colorful images, descriptions and everyday examples. I don't know if this is the best way for me to learn physics, not that I "miss" the traditional method but I felt I learned much more in that one than on this one. The dialogues we have are interesting, however that's as far as we've gotten. I want to understand and know details and work out problems. Maybe in tomorrow's experiment we'll make more progress. This is an epicycle we need to work hard on improving.

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NOSCE TE IPSUM

I was perplexed at how our dialogues from GEB and Don Quixote related today and how in all that we spoke a common theme stood out: Know yourself and your limits.

As we inquired into another chapter of GEB with Dr. Roberto Blum we discussed how humans are like sets of systems and subsystems. In the case of knowing ourselves there must be a sub-system that allows for introspection and self-reference. As we thought about this my head started to hurt, for I realized that it may become a trans infinite matter. On which level do I come to refer to myself as my true self? For example, I’m working on Euclidean geometry and there comes a point where I get stuck so I “pop out” of the system and decide to do something else, say make a schedule to work on my Geometry with a friend to receive help. As I’m doing this I’m thinking that making this is such a great idea since now I’ll improve in my classes and time management. As I think of that I think on how I came to think that . As you can see there are many levels, and you can keep “popping out” in metacognition. If understood and considered seriously this can drive you crazy or even worry you. How can you ever come to know yourself if you can’t leave the person you are. In case that you believe in souls, some people think that you can come to have an “out of body experience” but could you come to have an “out of soul experience”? There are limits to our introspection.

 As we all left a feeling a bit disturbed with thoughts along this line we came into our dialogue of Don Quijote with Dr. Amable Sánchez. The chapters we discussed from the novel were when Sancho gets a region to govern a property. Don Quijote, in an act of extreme trust, takes him into a room to give him some of his most valued advice, where on his second point he tells him to know himself truly. This is one of the most difficult pieces of knowledge one can attain. Know your limits, in every sense. What are you capable and not capable of doing both good and bad and be absolutely sincere with yourself. This is just one of the strings of wisdom our crazy knight shares which struck everyone because at moments he seems completely out of this world and confused but then he shows up with some of the most prudent and sober speeches. 

A morning like today’s combined two lines of thought that appear to be entirely different. On one side we’ve got this materialistic perspective while on the other a completely idealistic one. I’ve came to think that it’s not a matter of which one is right but a matter of the lessons they give us in understanding the universe, society and ourselves better in order to move through this life in a more meaningful way. 

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Habits of Thought

These are the top 7 dispositions, questions and matters of inquiry I think essential in a culture of learning. 

DISPOSITIONS

1. Sustained intellectual curiosity: the tendency to wonder, probe, find problems; a zest of inquiry; an alertness for anomalies; the ability to observe closely and formulate questions. 

2.  To seek and evaluate reasons: the tendency to question the given, to demand justification; an alertness to the need for evidence; the ability to weigh and assess reasons. 

3. To be planful and strategic: the drive to set goals, make and execute plans, envision outcomes; alertness to lack of direction; the ability to formulate goals and plan. 

4. To be metacognitive: the tendency to be aware of and monitor the flow of one’s own thinking; alertness to complex thinking situations; "the ability to exercise control of mental processes and to be reflective."

5. To clarify and seek understanding; to desire to understand clearly, seek connections and explanations; an alertness to unclarity and need for focus; an ability to build conceptualizations. 

6.  To be intellectually careful: to urge for precision, organization, thoroughness; an alertness to possible error or inaccuracy; the ability to process information precisely.

7. To be broad and adventurous: the tendency to be open minded, to explore alternative views; alertness to narrow thinking; the ability to generate multiple options. 

  QUESTIONS

1. What questions do I need to ask? 

2. How might I break this problem down into its component parts and develop a strategy for understanding and accomplishing each step? 

3. What am I aware of in terms of my own beliefs, values and goals with this problem?

4. What resources do I have available or need to generate? 

5. How can I draw upon my repertoire of problem solving strategies? 

6.  How might I look at the situation in another way? 

7. How can I learn from this? 

  CULTURE OF INQUIRY

1. Questioning and posing problems

2. Thinking about our thinking (metacognition)

3. Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision

4. Gathering data through all the senses

5. Learning continuously

6. Creating, Imagining, Innovating

7. Persisting

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Collaborative Waffles

7 months of MPC at UFM! aaand people are still late.

We began this morning with the idea of having an awesome waffle breakfast as a way to celebrate our first month in this second semester and our seventh month in the program. Everyone offered to bring in some ingredient or tool in order to make this happen, turns out that at 7:00am only 9 of us were present (Only Alejo announced that he was coming in late, which allowed us to make arrangements to bring in what he had assigned). By 7:15 we had 4 more people (Javier T, Kata, Carmen and Lore) however we were still missing Grace. 

A discussion started on whether we should’ve gone ahead and make the waffles or postpone the activity in order to have everyone present. I said that if we keep postponing activities we’ll never get anything done, it was even a way of punishing those who were missing for not being responsible. However Marce made a comment which made me take a different take on it. 

She said that the MPC was like making this waffle recipe. If we were missing an ingredient we wouldn’t be able to create the mix. I got to understand this concept of collaborative learning in a better way, I can bring in the flour but it’ll be useless without the rest of the ingredients. It reminds me a lot of how we have this level of collective thinking in a dialogue (compared to the limits there are to one person thinking alone). I was still angry but I learned the lesson and the importance of honest group work. 

After drawing class I took some of the chocolate chips I brought and shared them with the group. When Grace asked for some I told her that she would learn about "Carrots and Sticks" (way of analyzing incentives) by not having one due to her tardiness. She didn't take the joke quite well and aggressively responded that it didn't matter because other people were late too, that if she was the only person missing we would've gone ahead anyways. As I already wrote, she was in fact the only person missing at the point that we could've made the waffles. Today I'm planning on giving her feedback about her role in the MPC and how she needs to realize that she's an active participant of the program and not some invisible audience member that can slip by unnoticed. 

Later on that day we had our discussion on Don Quijote and I realized that only Grace and I participated and tried to get the conversation going. Amable’s dialogues always run smoothly, which wasn’t the case this time, everyone seemed absolutely lost. Later on I was told that everyone decided to remain in the circle after discussing that they hadn’t done the reading in consideration to Amable. However he clearly noticed, I noticed, and the discussion was poor. The dialogue was missing most of it’s ingredients. Every person’s input matters. We (yes, I’m clearly including myself) need to get it together and be up to date because we’re losing amazing opportunities of learning. 

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“Thus, if people are to co-operate (i.e., literally to “work together”) they have to be able to create something in common, something that takes shape in their mutual discussions and actions, rather than something that is conveyed from one person who acts as an authority to the others, who act as passive instruments of this authority.”

David Bohm On Dialogue

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Falalalala!

Music class was both interesting and challenging today. We began by reading an article of what does it mean to have a "Perfect Pitch", it spoke on how you may or may not have the ability to match a given note perfectly but you can sing well anyways. 

Then we had an exercise to match the notes Katya played in the keyboard and then she helped us measure our vocal range. Turns out that I'm a Tenor (Or baritone, I'm not 100% sure). This is going to be interesting... 

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You don't know Euclid until you've presented a proposition

To understand Euclid fully one must go through an entire process.

1) Knowing and understanding Euclid's definitions, postulates and common notions. 

2) Begin by taking an inductive approach at a proposition (not looking at the answer nor the drawing).

3) Making sure your answer and process make sense and are correct. 

4) Presenting Euclid to a group of people.

Though # 4 may not seem important at first today I realized how it's actually an honest approach at understanding this subject. As I passed to present proposition 11 I realized that I actually understood it. Someone read the enunciate and I worked based on what I understood not on what I had read or memorized. 

Such wasn't the case for Majo, she realized that although she thought her learning was being honest it wasn't as profound as she perceived it. This lead her to frustration but it ended up being a beautiful and clear lesson on how to approach learning in general. When we're exposed to the eyes of others they might see important details that we might be missing out. Given a safe environment this can be a great process, I don't understand why Majo felt "attacked" (as she said) when we asked her a series of questions regarding her process. I feel the environment we have is honest and not hostile at all. It all goes along the line of teaching to learn and learning to teach. One must not be ashamed of not knowing something, it's human!  It's amazing how much you can learn by teaching. 

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Farewell Mabe!

Today Mabe told us that she´s taking her next step towards exploring her passion and chasing her dream. She came by and read a very well written letter where she explained how our life is limited and we must take advantage of the short time we´ve got here and that´s exactly what she´s doing. As she spoke of this decision I felt sad but it shocked me to see how exciting it seems to really go after what you love. It seems a little obvious but it´s a thought I´ve had for quite some time and I had not realized how close my time may come to take this next step. (Not that I´m planning on leaving the program anytime soon, but 3 years, or actually 2 and a half years isn´t that much after all). It made me think of how I want to spend my life, what´s going to happen once I´m done with the MPC, what roads we´re all going to travel, all that there is still to learn and experience in life. It´s scary yet fascinating. Mabe was one of the greatest contributors to the program, it´s philosophy and the first steps. She was an example to all and I can only be thankful for having met her, she´s one of the most authentic and talented persons I´ve come to know. For me, Mabe has already succeeded. I wish her the very best of the best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O4NOiOkxs8

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Recursive Structures and Processes

GEB

  Today’s Gödel, Escher and Bach discussion was as interesting as it should be, unfortunately I didn’t do my homework and never finished reading chapter 5. I missed so many important details, I could’ve gotten much more from this dialogue.

  Many questions came to mind when thinking of systems, interconnections, braids, knots, our brains, feelings and of course the topic of the chapter: Recursive structures and processes. Dr. Bloom started by playing Bach’s French Suite no. 5 and analyzing the type of structure it held. (It was “AABB” where we have a couple of halves and each one repeats.) Starting with this topic we wondered if recursion is a characteristic of intelligence. Why are most systems recursive? What is recursion? What is the infinite?

  Carmen explained how on a “Philosopher Looks at Science” it is explained that there are at least three types of infinites. The first one can be understood by humans (for example, numbers). The second one she didn’t mention and the third one was the universe and it’s laws.

  Roberto then explained that Mexico’s coastline, according to Mandelbrot, is infinite. Why? Because we can take a general look at it and it looks straight, but as we zoom in and in and in to measure until we notice that the coastline is not smooth but rather crooked, same principle applying every time we go closer and closer.

  We also discussed how we could reach a common ground but we didn’t know if we could go higher, and if we could, would we eventually reach a top? By this I mean for example that our dialogue began with a modulation in the Michael Polanyi College. 15 people sitting in a circle discussing a book, once we go in this discussion we see a different world of ideas, subjects, relationships and processes occurring, but it’s really people sitting and talking. That would be our ground, could we go higher in the sense that is there something above the conversation taking place?

  That was a bit confusing for me to understand but then we spoke again about leaving the system. For example in chess, which is a mechanical game, a computer had the disadvantage that if it were to analyze every single possibility to make it’s next move it would take an enormous amount of time due to the amount of possibilities given in a game. In the intelligent system we’re able to leave the mindset of the game to have an overview, decide which pieces are worth analyzing, and then we go back into the mindset of the game, analyze the pieces we choose and make our next move. We may not be certain that it was “THE BEST” possible move but the game goes on alright.

  It made me wonder that if we’re in this system (our lives, matter, the universe) do we go into another system when we die. I mean, many people think we’re just matter that rots, to which I agree in the case of our brains and bodies, but it makes me think that we can’t absolutely know what happens given that we do have a soul (or whatever anyone would call it’s equivalent). Alejo refuted the possibility of us exiting that system since he said that our lack of knowing doesn’t justify that there’s anything. It gave me some peace though because I understand now that we may not be able to know it ever during our lifetime but there may still be some other system outside of this universe we know.

  Dr. Bloom closed the dialogue by comparing systems and our movement between systems with the way he prepared his class. We started off basing in our GEB text, then it became “an excuse”, as he likes to call it, for having a conversation and finally we made connections of our conversation and arrived at our text once again. We left a system, traveled through another one and landed back in the system where we started off with a better understanding of it.

Some questions to think about: What is tangled recursion? Why is it an essential characteristic of intelligence? What does it mean to say that our brains process in a parallel way? 

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Where did they go?

Where did our morning meeting facilitator and sharing time go? 

Today’s morning meeting was led by…no one. This reminds me of the phenomenon of diffusion of responsibility where by having an entire group of people responsible of a task no one ends up doing it since every individual assumes that “someone else” will make it. Such was the case with our morning meetings so I’ll create a google document to be aware of this schedule. We also devoted a corner of our board to write the day and the person in charge of the morning meeting for the day. In the end we watched a TED Talk by O.E. Wilson, which was absolutely interesting but I'm getting bored of watching videos every morning. I like more dynamic morning meetings. 

  Although Agora was not anything specific I did notice something strange and it was that we were all working independently on something or simply not interacting. It makes me wonder, why do we have the agora? Are we just buying ourselves more time to finish work? I don’t mind if that’s the case but in the afternoon as I spoke to Isa I noticed that after all this time here I never imagined that she was on the soccer them in her school and in Futeca (private soccer fields.)  It just made me think on how much do we really know each other, it doesn’t have to be about our private lives but we could use this time more to share as it’s designed to. 

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On Dialogue (1)

Today was our first Learning Processes session. We inquired into specific types of learning and the process we're aiming at in the MPC.

Didactics: Methods for obtaining and delivering information. (Lecture, Conference, Texts, Videos, Podcasts, etc.)

Praxis: Putting into practice what you've learned. (Dialogue, Projects, Experiments)

Autopoïesis: Prove mastery to yourself. A method of verifying that you've learned. (Documentation, Vlog, Blog, Reflection, Self-Assesments, etc.)

Allopoïesis: Show mastery to others. The student shows that he understands the subject and is able to transmit it to others. (Presentation, Essay, Video, Media, Projects, etc.) 

We'll be reading both On Dialogue by David Bohm and Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. 

Our approach to On Dialogue has begun differently. We started by glancing at the preface and creating a Conceptual Inventory (an inventory of those terms and concepts that we think are essential in the reading.)

Our first list was not specific and this is what we ended up with: 

-Dialogue -Practical -Engaging -Theoretical -Foundation -Old -Various views -Field -Multi-faceted -Process -Exchange -Range -Human Experience -Emotions -Patterns of Thought -Function of Memory -Import of cultural myth -Thought -Civilization 

We did a second draft, this time aiming for specifics. Now we were only allowed to select 7 terms (They didn't have to come from the previous list but rather from the reading and connections) This was our Critical Conceptual Inventory:

1.   Practical Working Manual

2.   Dialogical World View

3.   Range of Human Experience

4.   Thought sustained at the collective level

5.   Multi-faceted process

6.   Meaning of being human

7.   Enhanced Humanity

Our final stage was to make a Super Critical Conceptual inventory, where we had to select 3 - 5 terms we considered really aimed at the nature of the book: 

1.   Practical Working Manual

2.   Dialogical World View

3.   Range of Human Experience

4.   Thought sustained at the collective level

Condense all of this into a sentence and this is what I came up with:

It’s a practical working manual on the processes of dialogue as means of enhancing human experience. 

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We meet again, Euclid

After a break from Euclid we had to come back and face our fear, we're not up to date yet! With my group we decided to get our act together and try to catch up and squeeze the work of last semester into 3 weeks. I'm sure that with enough dedication and commitment we'll make it through. This is the group, our rubrics and how we'll be catching up. 

  Group Members: Lorena Palmieri, Maria José Crespo, Lucía Canjura, Javier Tabush, Javier Parellada

  GROUP RUBRICS:

1.     Respect the dialogue rubrics.

2.     Define clear objectives.

3.     Make sure everyone is on the same page.

4.     Come prepared to the activity.

5.     Stay on task (be present!)

6.     Be aware of how you communicate

7.     Be familiarized and apply Euclidian terminology.

8.     Question and verify the learning process.

  Catch-up Plan:

For Friday February 8: Propositions 1 – 10.

For Friday February 15: Propositions 11-20.

For Friday February 22: Propositions 21-30. 

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Singing Together

Today Mabe showed us a video that spoke about the complexity of our mind's interpretation of music. How can X frequency be interpreted as "Happy", "Sad" or "Nostalgic"? It sure raises several questions not only about music but about life in general, what are objective things? Why do humans react to certain things in certain ways? 

To compliment this beginning we had our first music theory class with Katya Braun. We had a brief introductioninto the world of musical theory, reading notes, octaves, pentagrams, etc. I remembered some of the things I learned when I played piano but I realized I learned everything in Spanish so coming back to it in a different language will sure make it a challenge. 

I'm excited to see how this will develop, we have our doubts about the methodology and about how it'll run but for now we can only hope for the best. 

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Welcome Back!

Day one. Semester 2. Welcome back to the MPC! Today we're back on track to continuing our journey of learning and growing as an institution. 

7:00am - We started off with our regular morning meeting where we shared some of our experiences during break. From travels to China and Argentina to knowing that Karen is officially part of our team, the feeling of being back with a group of people that appreciate learning in a similar way as I do is simply fantastic. These are people which I've come to know over the past semester and despite our diferences I'm eager to get to know all of them better and create special moments during this first half of 2013. 

7:30am - After our morning meeting we had our Agora, time to share informally and to get everything together. I've decided to move from my old space into what used to be Gaby's seat. I had a great experience in my old corner but I need a fresh start and I thing I've started by taking right decisions. 

8:00am - We were chatting and getting organized when two characters walked into our class; Dr. Armando de la Torre and Dr. Roberto Bloom. Their authenticity and passion for academics comes across from the very beginning, as they went around the room and we started conversing I couldn't believe I was finally getting to know in person Dr. de la Torre.  I've only had the chance of reading some of his articles in the newspaper and of hearing marvelous stories about him. As for Dr. Bloom, I knew him from before but never with the chance of talking about subjects deeply. I'm thrilled to have them both join the MPC this semester, there's so much to learn learn from them. I'm truly blessed to have this opportunity. 

Breakfast was delicious. I'll never get tired of having a typical Guatemalan breakfast: Eggs with frijolitos (fried beans) to a side, white cheese, fried plantains and in this case bacon as well. Fresh fruit, yogurt, granola and honey, and of course freshly squeezed orange juice and Guatemalan coffee. If they're trying to buy us with food, they're doing it well. I'm honestly amazed at how this is even possible in a formal university. I keep thinking of my first day of classes when I majored in business and it honestly doesn't even compare. The MPC is so warm and welcoming, I never thought I would say this but I'm starting to feel like at home in here. 

During this delightful meal we were introduced to new faculty. Carla Hess told us about how Karen Maeyens will be taking the place of Director of the program now, and Karen introduced Dr. Bloom, Dr. de la Torre, Kyle, and Heinz Chávez which will be taking the roles of facilitators in subjects such as Theology, Philosophy, Programming, Conceptual Physics and Mathematics. 

What impressed me the most was Dr. de la Torre's introduction, the way he spoke about Guatemala creating the foundations for a civilized and developed society was inspiring and gave us a broader perspective of the opportunity we have in our hands. We're off to a great start and I'm very excited to learn and grow in this new project.