Residency-Juxtaposition-Drew-5.5 hours
1/10/19
Today before session I was invited to attend the lab leads meeting, which consists of all the leads who teach the different labs on campus plus the director of JUXTA and other faculty members. I’m really happy I was able to attend because I got the chance to meet most of the leads that I don’t normally see. The meeting started off with a group activity that required everyone to be involved, it consisted of all of us standing around a small hoop placed on the floor. In the hoop was a little soccer ball that could balance in the hoop when lifted. Attached to the hoop were a bunch of strings that were different colors, either solid black or neon pink and green. Each team member was instructed to grab on or two if enough strings were available. After each member had a string in hand we would all have to close our eyes accept for those holding a different colored string, so those who were holding the black string had to close their eyes, that included me. In this instance we were told not to speak and we had to somehow lift the ball in the center of the hoop off the ground without making it fall. The leads who didn’t have their eyes closed had to instruct us on who needed to tighten their string in order or the ball to stay leveled. After we accomplished this, the task got harder once we were told to that we had to walk outside of the building without dropping the ball, and while half of the lab leads had their eyes closed. With the help of the other lab leads trying to navigate those with their eyes closed outside of the building, we successfully accomplished the task. Once we reached outside of the building, those who had their eyes open and were communicating to the rest of the team, then had to have their eyes shut. Those with their eyes closed could now open their eyes and had to navigate the team back into the building by communicating in order to successfully lead the team back into the building without dropping the ball and placing it back down in its original position. After we successfully accomplished this task, one of the faculty stated that this activity was able to represent how each of us play a very important role in keeping the organization moving, that everyone is important and with communication and support we can achieve great things together. To me, things like this really make me happy to be apart of JUXTA, and to be apart of an organization that resembles a real family in many ways.