Month: April 2016

This week, the people from NYC ALC visited us! I  finally got to meet Ryan and play The Game with him. I also met Douglas, the computer whiz. Together, both of them showed us a really awesome game called Werewolves. Werewolves is an awesome role-playing card game that’s easy to make, but hard to understand and be a part of. Every card has a different role, and you assume the role of your card. Your goal is to survive with certain people depending on your role and the circumstances of the game. It’s a bit too complicated to explain with words only. Besides playing Werewolves, we also went to Altitude Trampoline Park. As you can guess from the name, it’s a park full of trampolines. It was soooo much fun jumping around and learning new tricks. @danithemaker was going crazy with all the tricks and moves. It was fun to watch him while I took my breaks. Since he’s so used to this, he went completely insane and barely ever stopped. I also raced @danithemaker @alex and @ryanshollenberger across trampolines and back. I wasn’t able to beat the first 2, but I was able to beat Ryan by just a hair. It was really exciting and I’m very tired. Overall, the whole week was amazing and I can’t wait until they come to visit again or until we go visit them.

Sneaky Cards is a game that is played for several days. Maybe weeks, or even months! The goal of the game is to get rid of all your cards. So, you have a deck, and whenever you complete a certain task on a card, you give that card to someone else. For example, one of the cards says “Hold the door open for five consecutive people. Hand this ard to the fifth person to walk through the door.” Another one says “Find a stranger who will take a picture with you. Take a picture with a total stranger. Once you’ve taken the picture, give them this card.” The point is, that you get to play this game with the whole world!!! My two personal favorites say “Lay down in a public place until someone checks on you. When they do: hand them this card.” and “Sincerely compliment someone. Give a stranger an honest compliment, anything that you think would make them feel nice. When you do, give them this card.” I already did one that said something along the lines of “Give this card to someone without them noticing.” I did this by putting it inside someone’s purse when they weren’t looking (I’m not saying who it is, though!). So yeah, it’s a crazy game with a bunch of things to do and I can’t wait to be able to give all of my cards out!

For more information on this game, you can go to sneakycards.com

This week there have been a few changes in ExAlt. It all started on Monday. We got to ExAlt and we saw that most of it was closed except the living room. In the living room, the floor mat was missing and replaced by some chairs formed in a semi-circle in front of a table with some pencils and paper on it. So, we just sat down and waited. Alex told us we would be starting by assistance instead of the usual on time. When everyone arrived, Alex began talking to us about how he didn’t see that some things were working. He explained how we weren’t running an ALC the way they’re supposed to. We’re supposed to go to ExAlt to set intentions and carry them out. There shouldn’t be a day-to-day “i don’t know what to do” kind of vibe. We’re supposed to be agile and we’re supposed to make things work. It’s okay to not know what to do every now and then, but it shouldn’t be a common practice. So we started changing some things. We’re now using the Kanban board more efficiently and effectively to be able to carry out our intentions. We’re also making every morning meeting standing up and together, by assistance instead of on time. We’re also having a 5-minute cleanup every afternoon (except on the days when we do actual deep cleaning of ExAlt). We’re trying to do change-ups more intentioned and with their purpose: to decide something we’ll try out for a week for the things in consciousness, and to evaluate implementations of past weeks. I think that’s basically it. Or most of it, at least

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This week, I started learning how to use a sewing machine. On Wednesday, I looked up a video on the parts of the sewing machine and what they’re used for. Then a second video on how to use the sewing machine. It was really exciting whenever Roxy (anaiomy’s mom) and I learned a new technique and were able to do it succesfully. I traced some lines on some loose-leaf paper with the sewing machine. Sheyla the next day told me they came out really well! She then printed out some patterns on some paper and I traced them with the machine and she told me I was actually pretty good at it! I was even able to do some curvy lines with a lot of precision (still room for improvement, but for my first time, I did really well). Then, Sheyla showed me how to sew two pieces of cloth together, and I was able to make a really cute pocket thingy!! I’m really excited to keep sewing and making more things and even finish the cosplay!

Today we went to the Monaga forest in Bayamón to go rock climbing. So, when we got there we started walking and we found a little exhibit that had information about some animals, such as bats, crocodiles, and iguanas. It had some magnifying glasses with some bugs and microscopes with some rocks under it. We left that place to keep walking towards the rock-climbing wall. On the way, we found some really cool bunkers. I went inside one of them and then someone closed the door behind me. It was really awesome because it was pitch black and I couldn’t see an inch in front of my face. I then headed out and we kept walking. It started raining so we went and took some shelter at a big tower. I was going up the stairs quickly in order to get as least wet as possible, and then I stepped on a snake. I felt HORRIBLE after that. I wanted to apologize to the snake (even though it can’t understand me and that won’t help in any way) but it had left. Anyway, at the tower, we had some snacks and waited for the rain to stop. When it did, we went towards the rock climbing place once again. There, we put on some hammocks and Jose (@amaro2001’s father) showed us how to use the rock-climbing gear. I went first after they set everything up, and only got halfway to the top. After that, I just stayed in the hammock talking to @amaro2001 and @naborinyah. After a while, everyone went climbing at least once and then we left