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!