Bonjour, my fellow AGEUPers. It’s Abby! For those of you who weren’t there last Friday, you’re probably wondering what happened during our session right? Right. So, here’s the scoop:
As the aroma of the food filled the building, all the first and second years filled into one room while the coaches stayed in the other. The table was filled with three pans of lasagna (two meat and one vegetarian), broccoli, and apple juice. We can’t deny that it tasted great!
Oh yeah, the amazing cooking team surprised Tiffany, Claire, and I with some yummy cookies with vanilla ice cream on top to celebrate our birthdays. It was so delic, you guys are the best. Thanks!
When our stomachs were satisfied, Lani and Soriya began the session. We started off with reminding ourselves with our community agreement then moved on to the topic of the week. Socioeconomics.
Through activities, they talked about what is was and how it affects us in our community. The first one was where we all had a piece of bright green paper and marker.
Both Lani and Soriya alternated turns saying a statement and we would either add or minus a point. Some of the statements were:
- “I grew up with a nanny.” Minus a point.
- “A family members has recently been laid off.” Add a point.
- “I have a family member that’s a doctor, lawyer, or other professional.” Minus a point.
- “I live in a single parent house hold.” Add a point.
We then added our total score with the points that applied to us and wrote it on a sticky note. While our awesome facilitators gathered our post-it notes and arranged them from the lowest number to the highest, we all found a partner as we waited.
When we looked at the spectrum, we saw a variation. We talked amongst ourselves by making observations on how this number line made us feel. Some of us said:
- “It made me feel like when we added a point, it was bad and when we minus a point, it was a benefit.”
OR
- “There was a cluster in the middle and I think of the middle class, as for when you move left it’s people who are more fortunate.”
Afterwards, we were passed another half sheet of paper to write a statement pertaining to socioeconomics with sentence starters of “I am thankful for…” or “I wish…” All of us read each others and it got pretty emotional to the point where we all wanted to cry.
Our one word check out was our last activity and words like “Blessed”, “Emotional”, “Thankful” filled the room.
The last thing we did was hug each other. What better way could we end the session? Then, it was time to have more fun and play ULTIMATE.
Thank God we don’t have to run to Mercer anymore. We ran, stretched, did the dishy drill, then broke up into 3 groups. Two groups played “Shtick” while the others did jumping exercises outside. At the end we played one huge game all together and ended the day with a one word check out before we cheered one loud “ALL GIRL EVERYTHING”.