Liberation

My alarm rang at 6:15, and I had absolutely no problem getting out of bed. I was dressed and out the door by 6:30. Where was I going at 6:30 AM do you ask? I was headed to the gym with Mariko and Chloe for a quick early morning work out. We used the showers in the gym and I'm not saying our dorm showers aren't wonderful, but those showers were phenomenal! We managed to get back to campus with plenty of time for breakfast, and even some free time before we had to make our way over to class.

Today for our morning class we had a guest speaker, Filip Kovacevic. Prof. Kovacevic's main topics throughout the morning were liberation and elaborating on Herbert Marcuse's book: "An Essay on Liberation". He talked to us about the construction of an alternative. Everybody has different opinions on what a perfect society is, but I think most of us agreed that the one thing we'd definitely eliminate would be the global domination of corporate capitalism. Mercuse pointed out that if we pay attention to the things that seem powerful, we begin to realize they aren't so powerful. There are cracks. Another important subtopic that was covered was, individual liberation. Prof. Kovacevic stated, "Unless you are free in your own life, you cannot free others." Following that statement he posed the question, "Can liberation be sustained?" We covered many different areas of liberation and learned a lot about his home country, Montenegro. I wish I could just scan my notes from this morning so you could all know how interesting the lecture was! I enjoyed it so much, and I am so glad I was able to hear him speak. Below I will write a couple of quotes by him that I found to be interesting.

For our afternoon class we divided ourselves into three groups, my group stayed inside with Michael and we debriefed the morning's presentation. The other groups had their discussions outdoors. After about two hours of discussing liberation, consumerism, and an alternative society, Michael allowed us to leave early. I headed to dinner early today because a new camp arrived at Penn yesterday, and well, let's just say I didn't want to go through what happened during lunch again. It was a smart idea because dinner wasn't crowded at all, there was hardly anybody there. About an hour and a half after dinner, Chloe, Alysa, and I were going to the gym for round two of the day. After spending a total of about two and half hours in the gym today I am exhausted! My bed is calling my name and I just cannot refuse, so I will leave you now with the quotes I mentioned earlier. Enjoy!

"Knowledge is the key, not certificates. It's the experience." We were discussing American Universities and how it seems that people no longer remember their initial purpose. A lot of people now go to college only to get that piece of paper, their certificate. It's not just about that, it's about learning about what you love, what you're passionate about.

"Knowledge is like something sweet, like honey. Something that you wanna give to others." Prof. Kovacevic gives a free lecture every Thursday, and it's purpose is just to teach. He gets no money from it. He does it for him, because he wants to. If you possess a certain skill, why should you charge to teach it? Why can't you just teach it to others and expect nothing in return, is that impossible?

"The process is what you want, not the result." It's the journey that you will remember. It's just like success, success isn't a destination, but the path to that destination.

"Unless you are free in your own life, you cannot free other others." I mentioned this one earlier.