Thursday, July 9, 2015

Grandmas and Rock Climbing

Today was one of the best days so far while on campus. I started the day with an extra two hours of sleep because my class was starting later than usual. This morning's lecture was not in the regular room, we had to privilege of meeting one of the actors from last night's play, John. It was so strange to see John out of character. He instructed us to get into groups and to take a big piece of today's pop culture and analyze it. My group chose the very popular song, Uptown Funk and we criticized its subtle support of cat calling culture. Our group decided to reverse gender roles and cat call the guys in a sarcastic criticism of the song. 

For lunch Justeen, Joanne, Caitlyn, and Elexis and I decided to eat at the Penn bookstore. I was lucky enough to get half off on my pizza and Blondie. Elexis and I talked a bit about feminism and whether she affiliated with the new age feminists and she said she didn't agree with the double standards and some of their beliefs. We carried on our conversation as we walked back to class except Joanne and I disagreed on why Hillary Clinton should not be president. 

a couple of the grannies and me
I was very excited about our afternoon session because we were supposed to be talking to members of the Grandma's Peace Brigade, an organization that was anti war. I believe that all forms of war are disgusting and it is always disheartening to hear about the millions of casualties that die due to war every year. However, I have learned to respect war as an art form and a necessary evil. Sometimes, things just don't get done unless there are lives at stake. Yes, in the ideal world, there would be no war and everyone would love each other and sing together. We do not live in an ideal world and we are driven by our human nature to kill. Whether we kill in the name of religion, democracy, or terrorism; we are still human beings killing other human beings. I could go on about my opinion on war for pages but I'll save that for another day. One of the grannies, Paula spoke on drones and how many innocent lives are lost due to the bombings by the unmanned weapons. 

A couple of years ago, if someone would have asked me what I thought about drones, I would have answered with complete confidence that drones were the better alternative to troops. This, however, is not the case today. The question of drones is not one we can answer with a yes or a no because there is too many grey areas. There are too many innocent lives being lost in a reckless manner. I don't completely understand the logic in bombing a whole city in order to target one person. If drone technology were to improve to the point of absolute precision and no civilian casualties, then it would be less of a controversial topic. I asked Paula this question on the precision of drones, and she still believed that diplomatic intervention is the best way to go. I agreed with her to an extent. I think that diplomacy can only work up to a certain point before weapons are forced into the situation. 

After class, our cohort members decided to go rock climbing at the UPenn gym. I had never been rock climbing until today and I'm very glad I did it. It was so tiring climbing up the side of the wall but reaching to top was very rewarding. I had to try about three times before I actually made it to the top of the wall. The first couple of times, I think my slight fear of height psyched me out of reaching the top but I'm glad that I persevered. It was a total body work out but I felt that my biggest weakness were my fingers. They blistered easily and were too tired to grasp the rocks completely. Our cohort members cheered each other on because we all wanted each other to reach the very top. I have to give a shout out to Jun for making it to the top of the wall on the hardest course. She's definitely who you want to go mountain climbing with. 


After our work out, we were stuck in the gym due to a storm. We took a tour around the gym while we waited out the storm. We decided to duck out of the gym as fast as possible so we could hunt down some food before curfew. We decided to eat at a sandwich restaurant that made our sandwiches in record time. Our trip back to campus was probably the icing on the cake. We could not stop laughing about how silly we looked at the gym and funny our skits were during class. We were laughing so hard that I wasn't watching where I was walking and stepped on a giant puddle; this made us laugh more.
the wall conquerors
I'm excited to see The Minions tomorrow in theaters. It's definitely going to be a movie I won't soon forget. 

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