Monday, July 20, 2015

Continuous Blazing Weather and Extraordinary Learning

Before anything, I would like to say a few words about today's lecture; it was by far the most influential and powerful lecture I have ever heard thus so far. Although one may not consider themselves a feminist, there are instances where everyone is and should be. Dr. Litty Paxton, the head of Women Health Services at UPenn, came to share her knowledge with us about feminism and went depth in subliminal messages of anti-feminism on advertisements and television shows. It was devastating to watch some examples and even a few people stepped out of the room because of the intensity of the videos.

This morning I was supposed to be knocking on Elexis' door at 9AM but turns out it had to be the other way around. Elexis had to wake me up at 9:10AM because I was still dead asleep. Our breakfast plans for 9:15AM was then changed to 9:30AM. I felt bad because we had to quickly run over to the Commons and get takeout to class. The lecture began at 10AM and my eyes were fixed onto Dr. Paxton for the whole time that I almost knocked over my orange juice. The moral values of what feminists consider just and 'regular' is totally different from others who aren't feminists. Also, whom to take blames on situations like harassment, rape, assault, robbery, etc. Instead of questioning your friends, "Why did you dress that way?", "It sure did like you asked for it...", "You shouldn't have been there anyways..." what they need is a sense of assureness that you are by their side and if you look at the situation at a different angle, why is it that we even have these societal problems? Why is it that we'd (women) have to look out for our backs? Who is the cause of this? The origin of the problem is generally not blamed and thus everything slowly turns into victim-blaming. The perpetrator then gets released from jail after 1 year for raping a girl?!? WHAT. Sidetrack a bit, last week we visited an ex-offender who tried to make living by having cocaine. They were non physical offenders yet they were prisoned for 8 years and counting. How is it that a physical abuse on women less of importance than a smuggling drug case? I then began to question the questions about our society and our community in which we live in.

For the afternoon session, we elaborated on that as we watched various controversial advertisements and all of them could be discussed for days. There were just so many things WRONG with it. Here is an example:
There are so many things wrong in this poster...
Intel immediately took this ad down after numerous complaints about the structure of class, race, equality, etc. The thing is though that once it gets published once on public media, it'll stay there forever. If there was a diverse group of people in their marketing team at Intel, this would not have happened. There would be no way that this could even get further than a pre-draft. How can anyone expect to even consider this as an example of how fast their processor is? If it was the sprinter alone on the ad, I wouldn't have any problems with it. Considering how there are duplicates of him with the get-ready stance with a 'prominent' white male crossed arms standing up has so many complications. It's sad how big companies that we use their products on a daily basis might just be the less diverse companies and more of these horrifying examples will continuously surface until people of color change the marketer's (and many others) perspectives.

Our class was really into the topic so we stayed in class until 5:20PM. We had planned out a nice dinner with Mr. Hillyer at 7:45PM so we were to meet in front of the quad at 7PM. I had already planned ahead of time so when I get to my room, I'll be quick. Thank goodness for the preparation as I was not late because there was a sudden RC hangout-ing from 5-7PM that requires a mandatory participation of 15 minutes. In normal circumstances, I would love to stay as there were pizza, insomnia cookies, sodas, Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, and chips. But why is it that they had to do it today! I suppressed my urge to eat everything so I ended up eating two insomnia cookies. Hey, it's really hard to sit in a room with all those foods!

Our cohort met at 7PM inside the Nook and off we went. The historic Philly town was amazing at night and so was Spasso Italian Grill. The Zuppa Di Pesce was amazing. There were assortments of seafood with linguine sauce poured all over it. The servings were also very generous so I would definitely rate this restaurant a 5! It was a fun and happy dinner as we haven't gotten together in a very long time and this is probably going to be the last formal & classy dinner we'll have together.
After the dinner, we decided to do a little night exercise by walking over to Penn's landing. The view was spectacular but all I was thinking about were my blisters forming on the sides of my feet. Sure, flats are ideal for walking but there are certain kinds of flats that aren't for walking miles and miles. It was all worth it and I'm glad we had tonight's bonding time. Everyone was contented with their class and the stuff we'd learned and I can't wait to see how being a real undergraduate here at Penn is like. I guess I'll just have to wait for the undergraduates presentation by Dean of Admissions, Eric Furda!
Lights & the City!

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