Journal Numéro Ocho

>Journal Number 8!!!!<

October 8th, 2020

9:40am

Class Time!!!!

To start off this wonderful Thursday, Professor Sandridge had us do a quiz per usual on a morning like this. Today it went by pretty quick so hopefully everyone did pretty well :). Anyway, after the quiz Tosin and Naheim had a “who are the presidents” battle and challenged each other to name the presidents of the United States in a row and I was thoroughly entertained and surprised as to how many they actually knew. Everybody was hyping them up saying “Periodt” and “Okayyy” which made them only more confident in their strange abilities. It was a good laugh and great wake up exercise for everyone listening and those participating because once it really got started other people jumped in on the action too.

Our assignment for the chapter and the subject of the quiz, was on Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart so naturally we began to discuss the book and the leadership rolls/behaviors of Ned.

We discussed his behaviors that went against his ability to advocate for others and then some various other points describing his abilities to lead.

• He sees himself as an outsider in his own group when in reality he is an insider and has the ability to understand his LGBTQ+ community.
• Ned expects too much of himself and can get very overwhelmed and begin to be hard on himself at the same time.
• Ned is masking his motives — He was fighting for acceptance instead of the actual Aids/gay movement. It gets in the way of his ability to lead. (Arbin and Naheim)
• Their fear of being too political and too intense is what’s stopping them from getting their funding and voices heard. Even if Ned did behave himself more like they wanted to, they still wouldn’t be able to save people and get their funding without being angry and standing up. (Macy)
• You can’t deny Ned’s passion for the cause and his empathy. His empathy towards the cause instead of the people is due to his lack of understanding in the struggles and pain of the gay community as a whole. (Lettirose)
• Homophobia and transphobia comes from not understanding the community and not wanting to understand. (Ollie) Ollie then shared her own coming out story and how her mom needed to learn about and understand the LGBTQ+ community to really understand and accept her.
• If you can’t respect yourself, love yourself or forgive yourself then how can you respect forgive and love others???? (Isaiah) This pointed out how Ned wasn’t respectful of himself and did not think of himself in high regard or worthy of any form of leadership.

After this long but wonderful discussion on leadership regarding Ned and in general, we moved on to this exercise that Professor Sandridge had added to the chapter on Kallion. The activity had to do with our name and the importance of our name. This tied to Ned and how we discover that he had a different name than what he was using and how much meaning can be found in it.

Notes on Ned’s Name:

• Ned feels like his last name “Weeks” makes him weak like his father.
• His birth name is Alexander Weeks “Alexander the Great” meets “Weeks -Weak”
• Activate the parts of who you are, beyond your vanity.
• Ned could activate the greatness found within his first name and outweigh what he believes about his last name to ultimately allow him to love himself but it’s his choice as to whether he does so or not, much like it is ours as well.

Next, we broke into breakout rooms to discuss our own names and how we felt about them. Here are the questions we had to answer along with my answers to them.

1. Do you like your name? Have you always liked your name? — My full name is McKaila Noel Bees. I haven’t really minded my name all that much but it has brought about some strife and moments of discomfort. My last name “Bees” brings about many opportunities for jokes and puns to be made in various settings however, you learn to live with it and expect it to occur. Now though, I like my name because it is unique in spelling and in general.
2. Does your name sound to you like the name of someone who shows leadership often and well? What does a leadership name need to sound like? -I think my name sounds very ordinary and doesn’t have a whole lot of strength behind it but I believe that it can and has the potential to like all names however, leadership names seem to be ones that hold their own and have great meaning like cultural names with meanings in various languages of something positive and noble. However, I think all names can be leadership names if applied as such.
3. Have you ever gone by a different name, maybe your middle name or a nickname? Did that different name affect your leadership, either how you saw yourself or how you know/imagined how others saw you? -I have gone by Kaila a lot of my life just by family and the people at my church. I don’t know why but it just seems to roll off the tongue easier. To be completely honest, I feel like Kaila and McKaila can be two totally different people sometimes and struggle with making them one. People say we all act certain ways depending on the people we are around and that’s very accurate. When I’m Kaila I’m a youth/worship leader at church that spreads the word of God, which I am when I’m McKaila but it seems it’s at a much lesser level and I’m not sure why.
4. Do you enjoy telling people your name? -I don’t mind it.
5. What would you like people to think of when they hear your name? -I want people to think trustworthy, outgoing, kind and thoughtful.
6. Have you ever felt embarrassed, ashamed, or self-conscious about your name? -Yes, when people see how my middle name is spelled, a lot of them think it is pronounced like the male name Noel but in reality it is supposed to be pronounced like the Christmas Carol, The First Noel. This mispronunciation led to a boy making fun of me all throughout middle school and saying I was secretly a man. As any 12 year old, I was devastated and hated it but now it isn’t embarrassing, I just correct people.
7. What is the difference between your first name vs. your full name in terms of leadership? I prefer my full name to my first name to be honest. It holds more uniqueness because “McKaila” is a pretty generic name no matter how you spell it so I don’t feel like it holds as much strength.
8. If it were customary for everyone to choose their own name once they turned eighteen, what name would you choose? -I would choose something strong and probably unisex because I love names that can go for both genders. I really like the name Devin so maybe something like that.

October 13th, 2020

9:40am

Back at it again with the class discussions!

I took a long list of notes in class so here they are :)

-Xenophon

• Witnessed numerous governments rise and fall. (We today only know one government that has been in place for over 200 years and think we have it figured out.)
• What would perfect leadership look like? Think about it.

-Key Passages in the reading:

• Windsor- Cyrus talks to his grandfather with the wine and speaks on how observant he is and knows how to see the signs of poison in the bowl/drink. In reality, the poison was not there, the men were just drunk.
• Passage 3 on Kallion — They also teach the boys self-control (emotionally). Not only holding emotions in when you need to but also knowing when to let them rip. Self-restraint (in eating and drinking) -maintain a healthy balance.
• Naheim- Education (Pideia) -Elements that seemed irregular:

1. No training for women (Xenophon holds a very male dominated education system)
2. When learning about justice they’d try each other -sue each other for being ungrateful. The ungrateful are the most neglectful of their duty to all.
3. They don’t eat with their mothers!!!! Women aren’t considered mentors like Athena and Lysistrata.

• Arianna- Passage 6 in Kallion -Definition of leadership (where Sandridge got the definition). Providing people with the tools necessary to be who they are meant to be and to survive. We are all trying to take care of ourselves by going to college but we need to look beyond what it means to be a good person yourself and look to all humanity and understand how to help and govern others so we all become what we should be. This is the highest realm when thinking about leadership.
• Arianna’s Question -How are people able to build so much trust in Cyrus and his leadership?
• Answers: He’s aware of himself and the people he’s around. Good judgement and planning. (The best way to get people to be drawn to you and trust you.) Having self-control and passion. (People will trust you with their resources and lives.) He doesn’t have a lot of taste in luxury so he won’t spend tons of money, instead he’ll be managing the resources given to him and his community. Cyrus doesn't feel phthonos <jealousy, envy.> (It’s a form of anti-mentorship so it’s good that Cyrus doesn’t have it. It’s also seen when resenting the achievements of your peers/people. It’s a contradiction to the definition of leadership. You’re supposed to want people to be successful and live to their fullest potential not be jealous of them when they do.) His love for humanity.

What do you need to work on as a leader? -Personally, I need to work on my jealousy and judgement.

Exercise:

How do you get people to follow you willingly?

• Carrot and stick method? -punish or reward
• Create intrinsic motivation by having good judgement and being wise. In the case of the sick calling to doctors -willingly submit to whatever treatment they prescribe. At sea how passengers blindly obey the captain and trust him to get them home through the storms.

Answer questions with your group.

Group Three (Terry Jones, Mckaila Bees, Ollie Mason)

1.How does someone become a captain of a pirate ship?

• Experience
• Trust/ reliability
• Being named first mate for leadership skills
• Money (as long as you own a ship you are technically a captain)
• A plank (Carrot and stick method)

2.What are the common leadership behaviors of a pirate captain?

• An eyepatch
• A parrot
• Speaking up about behaviors concerning the community (i.e. calling out crew members for poor choices and/or behavior that endangers the crew and ship in some sort of manner)
• Compassion for his/her/their crew
• Making decisions for the good of the crew (a captain must go down with his ship)
• Training younger or new recruits in the way of the sea, and specifically, appointing a first and second mate, and training them to succeed you
• Forming networks and organizations with other ships or captains

3.Is it ever possible for a good pirate captain to become a bad pirate captain? If so, how would that happen? Yes, it is possible through corruption from greed for things like money, power, etc.