No More Monday Mornings

Today was the last Monday of class - my last Monday of school until I begin Junior year this fall. As a whole, today was very typical, I woke up and did my thing, and went downstairs with Anna (from my class) to meet Simon for breakfast. While we ate, Claire and Emily eventually slinked their way into John Jay and joined us to eat. We all talked about our weekends some, and before we knew it, it was time to start walking to class. On the way out of the dining hall, some RAs had posters about an art show, and they enthusiastically recruited me into giving them something out of my sketchbook for the show. So I handed them a doodle from the night before and went on my way to class.

Today we discussed an article that we'd had for homework over the weekend. It was about the film JFK, and the surprising psychological effects that it had on a set group of subject viewers. The film JFK, which we will be watching on the last day of class, is basically about the conspiracy theories that surround President Kennedy's assassination. The study that the article was written on concerned about 100 test subjects, half of whom were surveyed before watching the film, and half were surveyed after. The two test groups were demographically similar in age, sex, education, and political orientation. The survey consisted of questions regarding emotions, beliefs, and personal experiences with conspiracies (such as around the workplace). The bottom line of the article, which I found interesting, was that the psychological effect that takes hold on people is due to not only the filmmakers, but the consumers. After we finished discussing the article, our third an final guest speaker came to talk with us today. She was an old college friend of Professor Porwancher's, and currently works on Capitol Hill. She was involved in getting the Citi Bike program in New York City up and running, and talked to us a lot about what went into making that happen, as well as pro's and con's for each party involved - the private sector, the government, and the consumers. 

After class was finished, at 4, us WCCUSD kids met with our chaperone, Ms. L., and Ms. Kronenberg,  who is on the School Board. We talked with her about our classes and what we think of Columbia, and then we all went to get Pinkberry down the street. Like every pre-k child's dream, Simon and I went immediately from having dessert to John Jay for dinner. Like every grade level child's nightmare, we went from dinner to the library, and worked on homework and our research paper for about 3 hours. I got a decent bit done today, hitting the halfway point on my paper, whereas Simon has just about finished with his. I'm glad that I got so much done today, because I'll be fairly busy after class tomorrow and Wednesday!