Become a more educated and ethical person, first of all by getting to know myself so others can imitate the good qualities and therefore create a society where love and joy reigns over all.
Prepare well-educated individuals with a high capacity of analyzing, comprehension, and have reason of their own. Mpc'ers will create any environment into a learning experience, where they can add value, create and innovate. Even though they will constantly confront unconformity, reality or unfamiliar territory they will have the emotional, physical, and intelligence necessary to overcome it.
They own a very unique view of life: one where anything is possible with their inner desire, and therefore in reality. Their curiosity and high level of commitment makes them alert to any discovery. Today we were running like if we had ants in our pants. Like good guatemalans we left a lot of things unattended and wanted to finish things up before 11:00 a.m. which was the due date. I managed to deliver my handbook response at the due time and check out around the same time. We later had time to eat there and then around 2:30 grab a boat back to Pana were the bus driver was going to pick us up. We discovered this little restaurant besides Iguana Perdida, which had the most stunning view of the lake and of life. This moment I said to myself, "I don't want to be anywhere else, but here". Sincerely, it was overwhelming looking at nature's beauty and development. I decided when I retire I want to spend the rest of my days here in a beautiful house designed for my family and me. For lunch I had a strawberry banana smoothie. I just regret ordering that because on my way back to Guate, at the bus I was not feeling ok, I felt my stomach funny due to many curves our way back. Thankfully, many people wanted to use the restroom, and I just ran to the bathroom and managed to get just in time to puke in the bathroom. After that, I felt a lot better but still had not the strength to keep myself together in a conversation so Kata, gave me a non drowsy pill which knocked me up and slept for the rest of the way back. Until Carmen started using the bus microphone, and thankfully I woke up because it was so funny that I had to record it and we had such a great time listening to the things she came up with. We concluded that MPC needs to have it's own radio program. Soon we will be on that project. But for now we have to appreciate everyday's conversation with this fellows mpc'ers that now I call family. Here is my response to the handbook question:
Today it was a very fun day. Since the sunrise, finally it was a sunny and beautiful day. In difference with the rest of the days that were rainy and very foggy and cold. After working in our handbook and the question that was given to us we started writing the paragraph describing and answering our question. Later on we also had a little time to continue reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. At around noon Bert gave us the surprise that we were having a different afternoon, we all shouted of excitement and got our things ready to hop in the boat and visit this so place called San Pedro de la Laguna. I appreciated every second of this trip, since the boat which we could appreciate the volcanoes, the houses, the crop plantation in the highest peak of the mountains and much more. When we arrived we could noticed that the lake was rising a lot and a lot of houses had water above their windows, it was very shocking and sad. We continued walking and admire the paintings and the hand made objects. We hired a tour guide which was the best idea, he took us to a cooperation of women that made the whole process of clothing. Since the plantation of cotton to the dying and the selling. They looked so happy and inspired what they were doing with so much passion that it was very regarding looking at their pieces of work and paying attention to their explanations. We continued walking and entered little shops of hand made shoes from leather and other little shops. This town it is known for having no violence, no beggars, no trash on the streets, and a very unified community. This was reflected all over the place. At lunch time we were starving and went to this restaurant recommended by Bert, it was called El Artesano, it was very small and unique place. They had a library where we found ATLAS SHRUGGED. You can only imagine how we got all psyched with. After waiting an approximation of about 2:30 hrs. our food arrived and it was worth the wait. We order a plate of several cheese, where the first minutes nobody talked, because we had classical music at the back and we were delighting the taste of a variety of cheese. It was a great experience and loved every second of it. Here I discovered that I love taking pictures and capture magical moments that can't be put into words. On our way back it started raining and got a little bit wet, so we got into our cabins and continue reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. After dinner the skies were clearing up and we could observe the stars, planets and a lot of constellations with an app designed for it. Today we had lots of fun at night, we stayed up playing card games and later on jumped to the lake which was freezing and I discovered I have a phobia with swimming at the lake specially at night. Today we were given a question in order to start what we came here for. The MPC Handbook. I picked up a question which was the following: How does a student learn the ethical principle of a free society at MPC? Later on, as everyone picked their questions we got together with our groups and started brainstorming many ideas that came to our mind in order to write them down in a paper. After having a map diagram with our brainstorming we could talked to our group, because two people were missing, Lore of our group and Franz from Gaby and Chacho's group, we paired with them and made an excellent team work. We gave ourselves feedback about what things were left unclear, what other things must be added or just to suggest whatever. We had a very intense dialogue and had it recorded on Diego's computer, when all of a sudden our conversation was lost in history, the video had deleted by itself and there was no way to recover it. But anyways, I came to the conclusion that the roaster was the answer to my questions along with many other things, but the roaster was the principal. First I had to conclude what were ethics, what was a free society, what are the ethical principles of an MPC students. It was long but very interesting question, I enjoyed every second of it. In the picture you can see ourselves, Diego and I, very frustrated after noticing our dialogue was not recorded. After discussing the brainstorm, we had to make an outline on what we were going to write about. Bert lent me a high school rubric book that helped me a lot to think the importance of making a rubric. Afterwards we read a series of essays of liberal arts educations along the years and it's importance to society. After reading these essays I cannot be more thrilled of being part of such a lucky group of pioneers trying to give meaning to our lives. It was not all perfect and beautiful at Atitlán, we encountered many problems with each other, that if were not from this trip we could have never learn from each other. We noticed we could not commit to a lot of things we said we will going to. We had problems with the lunch and dinners orders, also respect silent areas, here and at the campus. We must do a traveling rubric urgently. Bert gave up on us and we were in our own trying to fix the mess we created. We wrote a letter to Iguana Perdida owners apologizing for the inconvenience we had caused while our stay because of the food ordering and said we will tell in advance the days we were not eating there. This was a great opportunity for us to learn that we are the responsible of our actions and that if we commit to something we must honor it no matter what, for everyones commodity. Afterwards, we had said every detail that bother us, we were back together making jokes, spending time together and just laughing at the situation. This day was another day of sleeping early and hope for the best tomorrow.
Wow. It's my first time at Atitlán and I already don't want to leave. There is beauty EVERYWHERE I look. It's such a different environment from the city. The hotel it is so simple and have a sense of familiarity. Almost everything is made by the women here, like the honey, yogurt, pizza sauces, and have the best home made taste. Today we started reading Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, we discussed it for a bit and found out that he was a self learner since the age of 10. Something I learned from him is that we are in the period were we do things for ourselves. Bert commented that Franklin and Twain had a parallel, they both worked in a printer setting the types, so they might become keen observers of the american language and became who they are thanks to that.
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