First Year

So here we are, one year after I started this fantastic journey at the MPC. What an exciting and thrilling experience this has been. I have learned and grew so much in this past months that I honestly feel it has been years.  Now I don’t see myself at any other faculty! But in retrospective this an interesting thing to remind since I had such a difficult time to decide if I was going to join or not. It took me to the last month before we started to really come to terms with my desires and take the decision to shift again of career since I had been in law and later in Political Science. Nevertheless, my desire and natural curiosity about all great things the world have to offer made me realize I wouldn’t be able to be happy in any career that guided me progressively to a narrower path. So, finally taking a leap of faith and setting aside many of my fears I joined the MPC.

It was great to see how the group was taking form little by little. I joined having about the half of the class full, and it already was a great group, committed people to learn. Actually that was one of the things that made my decision be easier. I already have worked with many of this people and I knew how responsible they are, so joining this group was like joining the entrepreneurs at Atlantis. Oh! What a great Wednesdays we had at the MPC before we started… such vivid dialogues… so much dreams! I think of those times with particularly love because they have been fuel me for a long time afterwards.

The weeks went by and one of the crucial moments we had as a group was the quitting of Ana Isabel just a few days before we started. She had a lot of things on her plate (great projects by the way) and it was wise to them not to commit to something it would have been too much to handle. That wisdom and courage to set aside for a moment your fond desires it is something I have to learn. At the moment I was truly sad since I consider her an amazing person but respected her choice at all times. Life have taught me that those kind of choices are not only respectable but indeed admirable. I was confronted later at my MPC time with a problem, I had agreed to fulfill some duties that demanded me more than I could have given at the time. It was too much and I had to learn for the bad side the wisdom that made Ana Isa take that choice.  That was a moment of realization that I will keep with me for my life time.

So the first day was coming and we had 17 students: Diego, Marce, Isa, Franz, Majo, Alejo, Javier Parellada, Javier Tabush, Lore, Lola, Inés, Chacho, Carmen, Gaby, Mabe, Majo and Me.  So we started day one and I got my place, the one I desired so much, the one with views to the garden, the library and the street.  I’m so happy to have that place, I’ve received so much inspiration just by looking at the mountain, the people walking and the rain falling. My place, such as is the couch for Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory, have become the center of my universe and my headquarters.  During my time at the MPC I have tried to make it my own. First I brought stickers, posters and writings to decor it, but after a suggestion of not posting anything on the walls I have to take them away. I was deeply sad at that moment, but I have had decided not to be defeated at any moment by a self-caused despair. I decided it was an opportunity to furnish my space in a more elegant way.  I took an old print (1807) of the City and Port of Alexandria and put it on a mark and place it on my desk. I also convinced Isa (my desk partner) to bring a cute Bamboo to give some life to the space. I took my books and place them on the bookshelf I had now next to me and I was set. I had made my own elegant office at UFM! What a privilege! So the lesson I learned by own experience is: when something sadden you, instead of feeding that feeling with anger and despair, realize that you might always find an opportunity to make of this a good thing.

Talking about good things I can mention the inclusion of Kata. What a random thing to happen! Serendipity, I like to say. She was the final person to join and certainly have become one of my dearest and most admirable friends.  So now we were complete and believe me time flew away the first semester. We were asked to start our blogs and our documentations. We were asked to do our Euclid. We were asked to have calendars and list of things. We were asked to read on time. In brief we were asked a lot of sensate things to do. But guess what? We were never forced to do anything. Why? Well because we had to have the experience by our own that we need them, and gosh, we really need to do all those things. But individual freedom the most beautiful of the treasures on earth comes without exception with individual responsibility. Many of us, used to the bad habits of many years of nonage, neglected many of this advises and indulged us in a comfortable track.  Off course this had its consequences and at the end of the semester we had much more work to complete than we wanted to do in our vacations.  Sadly this repeated for some of us at the end of the first year and believe me is more difficult to catch up once time has gone by.  But in some light this was good, now I realized how important is to do the little work at the moment so you don’t have to wait to have weeks and weeks to end it.  Now I have realized the help of listing what you haven’t done and planning accordingly to your needs and possibilities. This learning is worth so much more than a grade and I’m so happy about that. Learning at the MPC is not just a possibility is a reality that happen when you are faced with real problems to deliver work and to work with others. That is what I love about MPC!

052. Its beggining to look a lot like Christmas

For today’s morning meeting we had Marce in charge of the activity. She shared with us a video from Jim Rohn when he talks about living your life to the fullest. I loved it because it gives you two very useful advices to make this actually possible. First to develop good habits (being good only if they helpyou to achieve your own goal) and then to write down your experience. This last part is really important and is related to what we have been doing here... and I mean not only here at the MPC but here at my blog. The only way possible to be honestly accountable of your actions during your life is if you can refer to them. So that is the importance of writing what your experiences have been.

On Agora we continue the activity of sharing our family roots, Kira Martins, Tony Ung (from the film crew), Karen (our guest) and Marce shared they family stories. What impressed me today was the serendipity implied in every story that was shared and that bring us all right to this moment, me writing and you reading. Astonishing right?  I mean can you belive how a corner in NYC, a motorcycle in France, a college classroom, a letter from a cousin can become such important factors in the great histories of our lives? For me that is beauty.

And talking about amazing things let me share the dialogue we had on Consilience. It was amazing! Yes I know I use this adjective a lot but believe me is a constant in my MPC experience. We had to dialogue on chapters 7 and 8 and I must confess I wasn’t prepared good enough, so during the first part of the dialogue I remain in listening mode. It started with Carmen remind us a question proposed by Wilson in a video we watched just before class. What is human nature?

What a question! Actually is one of THE questions! But if there is someone prepared even to attempt to answer it with sound arguments is Wilson. So he start pointing out to the Epi-Genetic rules that are the genetic predispositions to learn certain behaviors. And I discover this was the missed link I had between genes and culture. Then the dialogue continue evolving around this concepts and after a while I start asking questions that helped me to understand better.  We had Bert in the outer circle and he did a great job pointing out quotes that could help us to understand the author. We also had Gaby in the outer circle and she also did a great job with active listening. At the end we debrief the dialogue and let me tell you it has been one of the best dialogues I had at the MPC!

Christmas! Christmas! During performing arts we agreed that we should choose a christmas carol to start practicing our singing since the medieval one is still hard for many of us. In a very fun moment we explored many carols and we decided to choose next monday which we are going to sing. We also decided to do a Macbeth rehearsal leaded by Gabi and Javier T. to get in touch with the Bard.

Kyle couldn’t arrive today so instead we had debrief and it was great. Bert and Gaby commented on  an incident they have in the morning that lead them to coming to terms with one another. I have to confess I felt highly tense during that moment, but in the end I believe was something beautiful because they managed very well and it will help our culture. Both were honest, expressed their needs and their perspectives.

Finally, thanks to Diego’s idea the day had the best ending possible. It was his idea to read the Quixote aloud and my contribution was to do it in the garden. We went there and it was amazing. The sunset also helped to give a magic environment to the reading. I couldn’t believe how many years I’ve been running away from this gigantic book when it is amazing from the very first page! We took turns to read and believe me is the best thing you can do. You will immerse in Don Quixote’s world, you will get inside Cervantes mind, and you will be surprised how well you can connect with a guy from four centuries ago! You will find yourself laughing and going to tears just in the very first chapter!

Dear Idle lector this was one of the best days of my life!

033. The Dancing Pioneers:Or how pioneers discover the grammar of dancing

We started the day with a contribution from Grace. She shared some videos about dancing as a form to introduce us to the ever going dialogue on human expression in movement. First she show us a video from a youtube channel that encourage people to share their dances, then a particular dance that expresses group work and finally a choreography that she designed. It was a fantastic introduction to dancing, I made a connection about ideals and realities and how a person can design or write an ideal and people will seek to achieve. In a very real sense the choreography that Grace shared made me think about our endeavour as pioneers and how we have to look the most to that ideal in order to this become real.

Then we had a task to look for the resources that students at MPC have available at UFM. We worked first in groups and then we shared our findings. It is amazing how much we have at UFM that we don’t even know. Fortunately we will put this in the handbook for new students to have a better guidance.

After some individual work time we attended a conference from a PhD seeking student of Architecture about seasteading and micronations. Although the content and context was very interesting the presenter lack some skills to do his presentation and at some moments he failed in maintaining the attention of the audience. But I do liked the content and I learn the following:

- That you can do floating platforms with concrete, and actually work better than iron.

- That creating a microstate shouldn’t be the main reason to start working in taking advance of the legal lagoon about high sea.

- The parameters to recognise a nation are steady population, having a territory and having the capacity to relate with other states. (Those are contained in “Carta de Montevideo”)

- That the Seasteading institute start working on the project BlueSeed that seeks to call entrepreneurs to go and work in a ship near San Francisco.

- That there is an international law to regulate the manage of garbage in highsea

- That some of the things that are going on now on Naval Engineering and Sea Related entrepreneurship are: floating hotels, residential cruises, wind farms, etc.

- That rethoric matters

After lunch (mmmm McRib with Diego, Chacho and Franz) we had a dancing session with Grace. I really enjoy it and as I said when we practiced Yoga I felt muscles that I never had before. It was a total of 8 simple passes but apparently you first have to develope more a part of your brain in order to be able to remember all of them. The kind of dance was Jazz funk.

Then we had lunch and start working in individual time.

029. Mixed Monday: Or how pioneers shared his concerns about accomplishing what is on their plates.

Today in morning meeting we talked about our PR and some of the feedback that we got so far is that we do nothing! Can you believe that! OMG Carmen would say! Well today we counted with Carla’s presence so she suggested that we must tell them what we do or the books we read. Bert also suggested that before telling that we must ask: So... what do you know about us? With Diego, Alejo, Marcela and Me we shared some of the activities that we had at the SFL workshop and anounced that later we will talk about the project that we developed aka: “Le Sticky Method”.

Then Carmen shared her activity. In a piece of paper we had to write something good and that we like about the person next to me. We did it and it was awesome! I got so many good things in my paper and I loved it! I will scan the paper and put it here. When I was reading Gaby’s (It was anonymous but you could tell easily who wrote them either by handwriting, order or content =] ) I wanted to cry! This guys are so great! We even stand up and had to give us a hug! Yeah Gaby thanks for that it felt really good!

Ohhh and this week is our Cleaning roaster week! So we made coffee and cleaned the dirty china.

After we had Greek Class and I’m not afraid to say I didn’t like it today. I’m tankful to Moris but I think he is still not willing to change methodology or maybe he is still struggling to find the best way. In my opinion he still want to teach a lecture and if that is true that would explain why he is not fond of student interventions. Today he even complained with Carla about the methodology. I’m looking foward today’s diebrief to see what our points of view are in this topic.

We went with Diego Rivera to buy McRibs at lunch and we had them at the MPC. Then Diego, Alejo, Marce, Isa and me shared with the others about our Work at SFL workshop and ask them if they wanted to help us. We got feedback about how to proceed better and focus on the inquiry more than the questions. (See activities). Then we had another dialogue on Emerson’s Self-Reliance article and what I liked about this time was his focus on you being the only one who can absolve you and that by doing this you will get the suffrage of the world. We actually had some problem to define the word “suffrage” and we still look for more clarification. We also talked about being what you are instead of copying or imitating or conforming. It is better to have lower values but being honest all times that change and muting accordingly to what others think.

Then we had our Math Class and let me tell you I loved it! I had been taking a programing class at CodeAcademy.com and I really liked it. (I love you CodeAcademy!) But what I didn’t realized it was that I was learning JavaScript not Ruby (the language used at Class). So I got with a solution to the second part of our problem. [Sum the digits of 100!]. It involved changing the digit into a string, then counting the length, setting this as my limit, then with a subscript taking the individual characters of the string and then changing them back to a number. I knew the theory but not how to put it on computer language, Kyle helped me with that and we run it. I was so excited, really, really excited. Then we puted the answer in Project Euler and guess what... It didn’t worked! Ohhhh! But then Alejo pointed out that we start counting at [i] (1) instead of [i] (0) so we run it again and it worked! I was so happy! Then after a brief recess Kyle shared with us about the Pasarelli Library Project. What an amazing project is this!

Afterwards we had debriefing and I pointed out the topic of Greek! It was so good to talk about this. We realized we still are not preparing as good, that having two texts might confuse us a little, that Morris is a good but misused resource, that he is trying to change his method, that we still are talking about issues that don’t correspond to the date. So we decided to talk to him about this issues and Javier Parellada and others offer themselves to make a letter. Among the things we decided were that we might let him gave us a lecture and ask after he finishes.

Then the other part of debriefing was Gaby sharing (by Marce’s question) why she was so absent of mind today at class. She shared his frustration  about not being able to cope with the requirements of the MPC curriculum and she felt bad because she feel have too many things in his plate. Also she felt she was the only one... can you believe that! Well then Javier Tabush shared that he felt the same... then others.... then others... and then others... and then me! MPCers got real! Bert acknowledge this concerns and told us that it was exactly the way we should feel like. Then he told us that it was going to get worst!!!! But that some of the goals of the MPC is for us to find out what are our strengths and weakness and departing from that point we should start building up! I totally connected this with Parker Palmer’s book! Ohh well it was an amazing day at MPC! And let me say that I’m really, but Really happy that Gaby bring this topic today. I truly believe that by doing so she showed again how much she belongs in here.

026. Classical Euclid

Morning Meeting:

Today was my second time as morning meeting manager. I was the first person doing this task and in that chance I couldn't present my video since the issues of the day take longer. For this time I asked if people agreed on me presenting again but later and thanks to Alejo’s invention I realized I didn’t take care enought and some of the pioneers had not presented yet. He expressed his concern and disgust with this. I agreed on his point and we addressed the subject, Inés scheduled a day and Mabe who couldn’t present when it was her turn scheduled too for a second time.  Sadly Lorena and Franz who also needed to present weren’t there. But later on the day they scheduled for a day.  The thing that I wanted to share was my love for classical music so I shared the video: Alice dancing under the gallows and the website: www.epdlp.com where you can find many authors and works of classical music ordered by century, author, work, country, interpreter, etc...  

Then we had mainly individual work time to catch up with documentation. Then after lunch we explored the article Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which I must say I liked very much.

Then we made some Euclid again but now in our own groups. I’m so glad since I enjoyed very much doing this with Grace & Carmen. Particularly the moment when Grace explained with eloquence the Proposition II of Book I from Euclid. She was so happy! I think that is the face of discovery!

025. Back to Guate: or the day we advance in our greek... invididually

Morning Meeting:

Kata presented today and she shared with us 2 very cool videos from the History Channel one about the Mayan Baktun 13 and the other about Halloween. They were pretty funny and well designed. We were told by Bert that Moris made a complaint about not being notified about our trip on monday, although we do told him two weeks ago that we were leaving so we should plan our lessons in order not to be behind. We also sang the happy birthday to Majo for this 18 birthday!

We worked during our individual time in catching up with our greek and gladly most of all advanced a lot. Even Franz start catching up with his greek and I’m glad because I think he really will enjoy this. Well but when the time arrived Moris didn’t show up... and at the beginning we keep waiting for him but later after a call to remind our principles we start working on greek. We tried to use the presentation but we realized that working in groups according to our level was the best and get the best questions for Moris next time. Some worked individually others worked in pairs of small groups. I worked with Isa and Marce and we had lots of fun checking our answers.  Later in the day we discover that Moris actually send a request to be absent but I thank Bert because if we don’t have the chance to react to this little vicissitudes we won’t be able to develop a stronger culture.  

We also worked on our documentation and let me tell you I was really behind but I discover that I love to do it. I documented Atitlán Trip and it was great. Then we had a dialogue on Self-Reliance the work by Ralph Waldo Emerson and even when it was just a brief overview of the paragraphs I loved it.  The main thing that I got it was that you should start learning to recognize the light in your own thoughts and speak your mind with confidence. The consequence of not doing it as Alejo described it will  to feel bad because someone else would say the same idea and he would be praised and you don’t. With Gaby we started to explore the more spiritual side of it... it is this the mission of your life? is this a mission god gave to you?

After lunch we had Javier Tabush doing and activity called: “The Trip” he red us a story and we had to imagine what he was telling us. Amazing activity he actually made us get really deep into our minds. I imagine visiting Petra and having a plane crash in London.... hehehe pretty intense right?

We had Kyle’s visit who help us to keep working in our programing. We actually made some developments with Grace and Carmen but we were still stuck. But then Kyle help us giving us some hints to improve our work and guess what IT WORKED! Then all groups had to share their findings and Alejo was the first. Honestly I’ve seen Alejo happy many times but today his happiness was different it surrounded him with a glow. The glow of wisdom, maybe?  

Well he explained to us how to find the biggest palindrome number multiplying two numbers of three digits each. Intense right? hehehehe Well he and his group accomplished it. Remarcable. Then it was Diego’s turn and he also was very happy his group problem was how to . Finally Mabe explained his problem and we found that it had a very close relation with ours. Ohhh amazing experience that even when gave me a headache it made me be interested in learning more about programing.

In our diebrifing we agreed that we should dedicate a little bit more time to learn programing since is a beautiful language that make us to think in different ways.

024. Failing: Or the day I saw into myself and I didn't like what I found

The night before we standed up until very late and we got a call for our actions and our commitment to the main goal of the trip. I knew that I wasn’t putting all my efforts in doing our tasks to I decided that I wanted to catch up that day.

We had our morning meeting and Javier conducted it, we all shared one funny experience, something that we learned from the person on our left (mine was Grace) and a thing that we learn about ourselves. My funny experience was looking at Alejo while sleeping and noticing that he was laughing! hehehehehehe What I learned from Grace was how attentive she is to other people feeling and about me it was how grateful I am about being at the MPC.

Then we had time for individual work and I decided that it was a good time to read Franklin so I start reading. While doing that Ana Isa asked me a favor which I knew it was going to take time but I said yes nevertheless. As I was expecting it took more time than I should planned and then I realized I only had about an hour to deliver my work. I thought it was simple but then I realized that without a computer it was more difficult than I thought. Noticing this made me really stressed and honestly the stress made stop thinking. When the time was done I approached Bert and let him know what happened. He just told me “Pablo, you know the assigment?” I said “Yes” and he turn back to work. I said “Bert?” and he told me “Pablo, do you need something else?” Then I understood that it was up to me to do the assignment. So I runned back to the computer lab and found that all computers were taken. I had to ask the owner his computer which he happily agreed and even when I were able to finish my work it was of lousy quality and I felt really bad. More bad I felt when I realized that first it wasn’t my usual standard and more than anything that it was the main reason to be at Ati in the first place. I then realized that I took it in some relaxed way and that I did not accomplish the MPC standard. I felt really bad about it because it was (as always it is) only my responsibility.

Then we moved  a dialogue on Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson a dialogue that I liked and that at the same time it touched many things upon me. Then we had lunch. Before we left I approached the person that  I wanted to talk and after some small talk I told him: “Before I leave I want to tell you that you are really cute and have beautiful eyes”. He said “Thanks you are cute too. I’m not gay but thanks for sharing that.” And you probably won’t believe me but I felt really good not only of telling him but because the fact that his answer was negative I was proud of myself of following my principles and conquering my fears.

We departed and on the way back to  Guatemala, Carmen called our attention about the quality of our work. At the beginning I resented her but thinking about my own feelings I realized that I was again angry not at her but at me because I wanted to be her, proactive and calling for action and commitment. Well, after she talked we agreed on improving our quality of work and we did! Next day our hand book was in Bert’s desk ready to be presented.

What an amazing and powerful this journey was for me. I’m so glad to have this experience and to share it with other committed persons.