"Gamesercises"

The first day of working with Lisa Jo Epstein from The Theatre of the Oppressed was quite interesting.  I think it was strange to go from having Adnan and Will talk to us about how we are made to constantly conform and follow directions, to having a much more structured environment with Lisa in charge today.  I am not sure how much I liked that stark difference in ideals, but I feel that I definitely benefited a lot from the exercises we did in class today.

David's Dr. Seuss Pants

This morning, Prof. Lamas made a short introduction about Lisa and The Theatre of the Oppressed and then let us know that he was not going to be in the classroom again today.  I miss having him and Michael teach us but I think it is good that we are exposed to different teaching styles; besides, they're usually just right outside the door.  From the moment she stepped in the room, Lisa brought a slightly quirky, but super enthusiastic and fun vibe to our class.  Yesterday, Prof. Lamas wrote up a dress code that Lisa wanted us to follow for today, so we all showed up in long pants and were wondering what sorts of activities would require such clothing and not allow shorts.  I still don't know why we were supposed to wear long pants because we didn't do any type of tumbling or extreme exercises that long pants would have helped prevent our legs from getting scratched up or anything.  Even so, my friend David (not from my cohort) wore some great pants that made the dress code worth while! 

During that first workshop, we created a class handshake made up of a collection of handshakes that we made in pairs earlier that morning.  We did many activities like this one, where we would get into groups of 2-6 and focus on honing our communication skills. I felt like I was learning a lot more about the people in my class just from these simple exercises and when we continued them in the afternoon session, I had a chance to bond even more with classmates that I don't normally hang out with.  We have two more days with this woman and I am interested to see what she has in store for us!