Safety First. Then Teamwork. Mostly Teamwork but Wear Shoes in the House

For this teamwork session, I decided to invite my mother, Cynthia Ball, to be my guest for the challenge. Allow me to first start my saying that I LOVED THIS CHALLENGE!!!!! I enjoy cooking and also interacting with my fellow fellows to learn something that i didn't know before or even becoming more diverse so much and this challenge brought all of those things together. My mother and I worked with Beth and her guest, Bob, and Mariam and her father to create a spicy vegetarian chilli and curry chicken over a bed of white rice. Working with my mom as my partner was a very different concept than our normal relationship. I doubt that we have ever done something where we had to work as a team to complete a common goal. We have helped each other over the years in working to achieve various goals but never has it been as involved or intensive as the teamwork challenge. It was a little challenging to work with other fellows and my guest due to the fact that my guest was my mother. Differences in addressing elders was very common to me. I would never call an adult which I just met by their first name but it seemed second nature to beth and Mariam. I am not saying that they were being disrespectful to her, but I definitely noticed a difference in how i addressed Mariam's father and the way she addressed mine. But these are simply differences in how we were all reared growing up. Everyone seemed to work well as a team. After deciding on the dish, Mariam and her father took the lead on this project because they had the most experience making this dish and knew the proper procedure. No one challenged this structure for the good of the team. Mariam definitely took authority which is something I learned from our past challenge that must be done in order to be successful. One person or a small group must take initiative to lead the team. After selecting the entree, tasks were divided up based on cooking experience and relative skill of the culinary arts. Every person had a specific task and the success of our team was dependent on how well each person completed their own task because each small part comes together to make up the meal for the entire team. Therefore, if one area was lacking, it would bring down the score for the whole team. We succeeded in making a delicious meal and working as a team with great communication and team cohesiveness. One part where we failed was in the execution of timing. We took too long prepping the food and we almost ran out of time while plating. I think the value of teamwork comes down to how i described the dish. Everyone's part may seem small or insignificant but in actuality, each section is paramount in the final product. The small pieces are what come together to give the overall product and if some of these small pieces are not handled properly, the entire structure will come crashing down. Taking this knowledge into the upcoming challenge, I will not let myself or my teammates feel as if their work is too small or that it does not mean anything to the group. We all must understand that every task goes towards the overall end result of this challenge and you never know what small step may be the catalyst that sends our team skyrocketing towards new heights and ultimately success.

Metacognition ! Thinking about the Thought We Were Thinking Before We Thought It!

Going into the critical thinking workshop, I did not have many specific expectations. From working with BLF, I have learned to keep an open mind about EVERYTHING and to expect the unexpected. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems and nothing is ever as surface deep as it appears. I was very excited to go to Museum because analyzing art has always been a favorite activity of mine. After going through the workshop, I learned to look at everything deeper than the surface. If one takes the time to sufficiently analyze something, he could probably find a much less superficial meaning than the one that is present. The woman's comment about how most people only take about 7 seconds to view each piece really resonated with me about my own world. One thing that I learned, which is pretty consistent with the aforementioned concepts, is that I do not take the appropriate time to properly analyze the world around me and that I could probably find more beauty in the world if i did. I am almost positive that I was able to say anything and everything about the workshop during the workshop, due to the fact that I was very active and talkative during the session. But during the workshop, a strong appreciative emotion hit me hard! I'm not sure why, but at that moment, I realized just how blessed I am to be in a premier leadership program such as Buckeye Leadership Fellows. All of the resources available and the connections which could potentially be made are so imperative that one would kill for such an opportunity! I have numerous opportunities to make and maintain many connections with so many other students and alumni through this program. I can truly say that this program has impacted my overall college experience in a positive way! I feel as if BLF values Critical Thinking so much because they are trying to develop us into the best leaders we can possibly be. Being a great leader involves being able to think fast on one's feet when times are not going as planned. One must also be able to think abstractly and outside of the box. Most times, in order to achieve something, one must contemplate an idea in a way which it has never been thought about before. BLF wants us to be innovators, therefore we must be able to think like innovators. All of these lessons will be utilized in the upcoming challenge because I am going to take my new pattern of thinking and analyzing to into the forefront of the challenge. These things will be used when the initial planning and executing of the challenge is taking place.



Part Dos!!!

 This scene here is the path that I walk across every day when I am going to class. I will use the ODIP method to analyze this picture.

Observe:
I see wet decaying leaves on the ground. The air is very cloudy. It appears as if it had rained recently. The trees are still bare and the grass looks muddy and soft. Many students are walking across the yard and it appears as if there is an increase in traffic influx at the corner of the intersection.

Describe:
The ground looks as if one would slip and fall if he were running too fast. Someone would sink into the marshy grass if he stepped on it. The ground is saturated with water and very moist. The scene is gray and appears very sad and depressing. The glass structure to the left is like a prizm that was placed in the ground.

Interpret:
The area gives me a very depressed feeling, especially on this day. The picture is gray and wet and cold and simply gives an overall unwelcoming feeling. However, the glass prizm on the left side makes one think of innovation and what could possibly be done to the land to improve its current state.

Prove:
I do not exactly remember how to use this point in the ODIP system but i  feel as if this is the section where we reveal what exactly was going on when this photo was taken. I had just gotten out of a midterm, and the weather was particularly bad on this day. I was already overwhelmed by the midterm and the thought of all the work i still had left to do and i believe that this was incorporated into the picture and was essentially carried over into my interpretation.