I thought that it would be appropriate for this blog post to have a title. But then I realized that none of my other ones did, so to stay consistent/defiant of the norms of blogging, I will resist yet again. This blog post topic was really tough to come to, because in being asked what my greatest learning experience was, I did not feel like I could narrow it down to just one. While I still stand by this statement, I do think that some of these experiences come at a really essential time in your life and it almost seems as though the world has shifted its path just so that you can open your eyes and learn what you really should be committing yourself to. I feel this way about...

MY TRIP TO GUATEMALA, 

SPRING BREAK 2012

 SO why was the timing of this trip so amazing? I will resort you to the picture of Kermit from my last blog.    

I looked kind of like this before that trip. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to get work done because I was extremely "involved" but not necessarily completely invested. My trip to Guatemala, in many ways, was a chance for my to take a break from my life and prioritize to realize what paths seemed truly compelling to me so I could be both involved and invested in every action within my life.

Everything about this trip was really amazing. It was a service trip with an organization called Constru Casa. If you are interested in learning more about the organization, go to www.construcasa.org. Essentially, I did about a 40 hour service week to help build a home for a family of six. The thought behind this organization is that they provide homes for families who are setting a really great behavioral example within their community, and these families MUST have kids, so that their new home can hopefully break a cycle of extreme poverty for many generations to come. This is the family I helped to build a house for: 

One really cool thing about this organization is that they require the families to be there during the building of the house. Because of this, I got to spend a lot of time with the family, and on breaks would get to play games with three of the little girls, Josline, Dulce, and Rosaline. I learned a huge lesson from this family... LESSON ONE: That you do not need to communicate in the exact same way as somebody else to form a relationship with them. Even though they spoke Spanish and I spoke English, we gained this really great respect for one another and just enjoyed being around each other. I think that is the true magic of hands on service, which brings me to LESSON TWO: Philanthropy is great, but for me, nothing beats the experience of impacting somebody's life first hand. 

Along with this service, we did a ton of other things as well. One of the days, the masons who built the house with us challenged us to a soccer match. I am in no way an athlete, and obviously, we were going to lose, but we nevertheless agreed that it would be a good idea. They proceeded to drive us to one of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen... this beautiful soccer field amidst mountains. LESSON THREE: Never say no to a new experience... you never know what great places it can take you. 

Another great aspect of the trip was relationship building. I went with eight other students who I became really close with. On top of it, I stayed at a host home where three other ladies were staying, two who just came to travel from England, and one who is a kindergarten teacher from Wisconsin. Their names, respectively, are Jeanette, Jenny, and Megan. They taught me LESSON FOUR: Storytelling is one of the best ways to learn about the world. Every day after dinner, we would sit at the dinner table for literally two hours and just life chat and all of the stories I heard from them really just opened up my eyes to how many great experiences there were to be had in the world. These amazing, never ending conversations brings me to LESSON FIVE: Time does not matter when you are sacrificing caring for it for something meaningful. I did not have a watch or phone the entire week. I just lived my life and built relationships, and served, and because of it, I left Guatemala with great new friends and experiences. 
By the way, these two are Jeanette and Jenny: 

We also took a couple adventure trips throughout the time in Guatemala, one on a volcano hike where we even got to roast marshmallows at the top. This taught me to LESSON SIX: take time to reflect on how far you have come. My health has gotten so much better since I got to college, and while I would have been able to do the volcano hike at the beginning of my college experience, the ease I did it with made me feel incredible 

Our second adventure trip was zip-lining. We invited Megan on this trip after becoming close with her throughout the week. She was really homesick, which takes me to LESSON SEVEN: people are always going to be in need of some one who understands. As somebody from Wisconsin, I think we were able to help her feel at home because she had been away for much, much longer than we had, and still had a while to go in Guatemala. She no doubt loved the zip lining trip, and we, no doubt, loved having her. Zip-lining was phenomenal to say the least.This is Megan in our caravan up to the zip-lining place: 

I do not know if I can put into words how much I loved this trip. I realized LESSON EIGHT: If you are busy around the clock while being happy around the clock, you have achieved some pretty phenomenal life equilibrium. This is how I felt during my trip to Guatemala, and I carried a lot of lessons back home with me too, including the knowledge that LESSON NINE: living in an underdeveloped country and being happy are completely separate entities. The children of San Juan, the community I served in, were extremely happy, even though they did not have roofs over their head. They made the best with what they had and showed me that their happy, seemingly simple life, was truly a happy one. Which today, has influenced me to want to go into International Development, so I can continue to work, make a difference, and continue to have immense learning experiences from communities like the ones I saw in Antigua and San Juan Guatemala.  

There is literally ten times more than this that I want to talk about, from my random walks throughout the city of Antigua, to when our host mom, Anna, with her dog Pinky of course, through a surprise birthday party for Jeanette, but I do not want to bore, so I will just show some pictures instead! 

Since my trip to Guatemala,  I think my inner Kermit is a lot more like this: 

He not only loves talking to Christian Bale, but more importantly, he is cool, calm, collected, and ready to set out on a journey for what his passion is calling him to do.

Make the world better,

Anooj

Hello all!,

The following is a song from a past Tony Award winning musical, Spring Awakening:

If you listen to the words, you can see some resonance with this song in terms of the "In Loco Parentis" view of higher education, and yes haha, they are chanting latin at the beginning... if you are imaginative enough, maybe you can make out the words 'In Loco Parentis'... too much of a stretch? The way that this form of higher education is described seems slightly oppressive. Today, I think of higher education as not only an experience in learning what your major has to offer, but an experience in learning about and exploring life. I'm not saying that this is what all parents would want, but in order to teach to the strictest of parental values, it would likely be necessary. The song is focusing on a character's feeling of oppression in a world of knowledge, and I think this would be the sentiment of many students.

 "I'm calling, to know the world's true yearning... the hunger that a child feels for everything they're shown."

This may be the most crucial line in this song, as I think it represents a strong mindset of people our age. This ties into the Values Based and Spiritual Leadership that we talked about last week, but the modern perspectives of higher education are really a call for students to find meaning in every aspect of their life. I would be lying if I said there were not hundreds of times when I felt like a kid because of how little I knew about a certain subject, but there have been so many times at Ohio State where I feel so fueled about world issues that I just want to jump up on a table and proclaim me need to change the world. And because of the way higher education is set up, I truly believe that I am capable of doing so.

I truly think that there is one singular word that can define why this is so important for us to learn about in college:

Appreciation. 

I know a bunch of students outside Ohio State who still feel like this in their college experiences: 

 And while I sometimes feel like this, overcome with all the things I am always busy with: 

In the end of the day, I am left to be nothing but thankful for all the opportunities that I have been able to pursue. (If you could not tell, I really wanted to use that GIF of Kermit).

The Student Services Movement just seems so sensible that it is hard to imagine a campus without it. An accent on the outside-the-classroom experiences is what has truly formed my college experience to be what it is. Chickering's Psychosocial Theory outlines a very crucial process for all college students. In my opinion, the greatest step within this process is developing purpose. While I think I used to look a lot more like Kermit the Frog above, I think that my ability to develop purpose at Ohio State has really made my passion and involvement more creative and focused, providing me with a reason to be thankful, rather than a reason to start spazzing like our dear friend Kermy. In looking through the influencing vectors, I truly think that friends, groups, and student culture has been the most influencing, and what I have used to find a lot of my purpose. Perry's Cognitive Theory gets at the very important topic of commitment, which I think a lot of students can struggle to develop if not given the creative freedom to explore knowledge. Under "In Loco Parentis" I imagine students struggled in this sense because some were being forced to commit to ideas that lacked passion from their perspective.   

The Leadership Identity Model is also extremely purpose driven. In looking at the steps of awareness, exploration, leadership identified, leadership differentiated, generativity, and synthesis, it may seem at first that it is implying that every leader takes the same journey. However, I think what it truly means is that each leader takes a journey that is defined by their exploration and finding to them what truly matters. As I said before, there is a big difference between a leader who is intentional in pursuing what they are passionate about, and a leader who simply leads to lead. The latter can get stressed easily and find themselves unfocused, while the intentional, passionate leader can use their passion to form their leadership and their actions they will take as a leader.  

Finally, I will leave you with a picture of Milou. He has nothing to do with this post, but he is the greatest dog ever:

Make the World Better,

Anooj

I absolutely love this blog assignment because I absolutely love finding leadership themes in media. Weird? I think not. I'll start out with the following three, but I am sure there will be more to come as the semester goes on:

1. Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership- LOST

The "Live Together, Die Alone" speech in lost may be one of my favorite TV monologues of all time. Also, to just throw it out there, LOST is literally may favorite TV show ever. I think leadership is often revealed when it takes a tremendous amount of courage to brave through pain. The characters in this show are survivors of a plane crash and this is a monologue from season 1 that really encompasses all five practices on a verbal level. Jack, the speaker, sets a shared vision of cooperation and models the way for what behavior should look like. While this really highlights the first two practices, I still believe that it is a great example of leadership. He definitely Models the Way, and Inspires a Shared Vision.

"If we can't live together, we are going to die alone." 

2. Transactional and Transformational Leadership- Louder than Words

If you did not know this about me, I absolutely love musical theatre. Now, I don't mean that I enjoy going to see musical theatre, but I legitimately day dream about being on stage and being an amazing musician/actor/dancer/crazy triple threat. The song I wanted to post to talk about Transactional and Transformational Leadership is called "Louder than Words" from the musical "Tick Tick Boom", which is by the same man who wrote Rent. This song is a call for courageous action, and encourages the thought that actions truly do speak louder than words. Transformational and transactional leadership both call for a serious look at action in the world and its ability to inspire those around you with them. While transformational fits this more, transactional leadership still supports the idea of "outcome-inducing" leadership. Lyrics are posted below :)

"What does it take, to wake up a generation? How can YOU make someone take off and fly?" 

Why do we play with fire?
Why do we run our finger through the flame?
Why do we leave our hand on the stove-
Although we know we're in for some pain?
Oh, why do we refuse to hang a light
When the streets are dangerous?
Why does it take an accident
Before the truth gets through to us?
Cages or wings?
Which do you prefer?
Ask the birds.
Fear or love, baby?
Don't say the answer
Actions speak louder than words.

Why should we try to be our best
When we can just get by and still gain?
Why do we nod our heads
Although we know
The boss is wrong as rain?
Why should we blaze a trail
When the well worn path seems safe and
Jonathan and Susan:
So inviting?
How-as we travel, can we
See the dismay-
And keep from fighting?

Fear or love, baby?
Don't say the answer
Actions speak louder than words

What does it take
To wake up a generation?
How can you make someone
Take off and fly?
If we don't wake up
And shake up the nation
We'll eat the dust of the world
Wondering why

Why do we stay with lovers
Who we know, down deep
Just aren't right?
Why would we rather
Put ourselves through hell
Than sleep alone at night?
Why do we follow leaders who never lead?
Why does it take catastrophe to start a revolution?
If we're so free, tell me why?
Someone tell me why
So many people bleed?
Cages or wings?
Which do you prefer?
Ask the birds.
Fear or love, baby, don't say the answer,
Actions speak louder than words.


3. Spiritual and Value Based Leadership- Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

So I would be lying if I said that I did not need to reach for a box of tissues every time this scene comes on in this movie... yes folks, I do cry at Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, and if you have not seen it, you totally should! I copied the text from the dialogue underneath the video, but in short, this is a point in the movie where Mr. Magorium, a man who has been alive for hundreds of years, realizes that it is his time to go. He leaves with what may be one of the most beautiful monologues in movie history. He essentially stresses how the important thing in the concept of death is the life lived prior to it, and the importance of truly living a personally meaningful life and the value of our existence.

In the words of Mr. Magorium, "Your life is an occasion... rise to it."

"When King Lear dies in Act V, do you know what Shakespeare has written? He's written "He dies." That's all, nothing more. No fanfare, no metaphor, no brilliant final words. The culmination of the most influential work of dramatic literature is "He dies." It takes Shakespeare, a genius, to come up with "He dies." And yet every time I read those two words, I find myself overwhelmed with dysphoria. And I know it's only natural to be sad, but not because of the words "He dies." but because of the life we saw prior to the words.I've lived all five of my acts, and I am not asking you to be happy that I must go. I'm only asking that you turn the page, continue reading... and let the next story begin. And if anyone asks what became of me, you relate my life in all its wonder, and end it with a simple and modest "He died."


That is all for now :)


Make the world better,


Anooj