Hey everyone!
Today was my first day at the PILOT Program in San Francisco. The place is near the Bay View of San Francisco. We went through a rough neighborhood in order to get there, so I wondered how I was going to make it through the day.
When I got there, I met some of the other people in the program. Loni, Hine, Jen, and JJ were all pretty cool people. 3 of them were from Sac and one of them was from Stockton. After about 15-20 mins, other people in the program showed up. I'm pretty much the only high school senior in the program. The oldest person there is 26. I guess thats what you get for enrolling in a college leadership program. We went upstairs to eat breakfast and socialize. It was still kind of awkward, but we played a small game that broke the ice.
Our first activity as to share our "Lifeline," which is our story in 5 mins. I somehow shoved most of my life within the time limit, but I was able to be open and vulnerable and get people to sympathize and understand me. At the end of the activity, it felt like we were all friends.
In our second activity, we talked about the things that stereotype us and limit us. Such things would be, age, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, gender, class, and more. I was able to effectively express myself, as did others, which caused the group to become family like. After the 2nd activity, we had lunch.
During the 3rd activity, I was pretty sleepy, so I did miss half of it. (P.I. food puts you to sleep!) But when I was awake for brief moments, I did contribute. The conversation was about Imperialism, and how the Euro-American influence pushed away and destroyed so many cultures. One or two people became really passionate on this topic, and shared their experiences from their life.
The last thing we did was a small presentation on a Pacific Islander. We don't often hear about P.I.'s in the media, especially for positive things. Little does the world know that its full of P.I.'s that have made changes in their communities to preserve their culture and better the world. My friend Ono and I made a presentation on a man named Frank Rabon.
I will shortly upload some pictures from today. The event is Monday to Friday from 8am to 5pm.
Hours Completed: 9
