Team First Gear

I think that Team First Gear has worked together extremely well over the past few months, building off of one another's talents to create a strong group. We have discussed that one of the most difficult aspects has been execution of our ideas. We worked on our team for a long time making sure that all of our bases were covered, including peer reviews, delegation and good communication. 

Each of Team First Gear's members offer a unique but cohesive aspect to our team. Jenny is incredibly good at technology and organization: blogs, websites, and the video were all done well and efficient. Ian is a really good group member in the sense that I can tell he cares that everyone has their say and he often builds conversations through what he learns by listening to all of us. He was also the very first person to reach out to anyone about cars so I see him as a proactive person as well. Jessica is a great member due to her focus on the team- aspect of this challenge. She insisted on outlining goals, expectations and tasks for our group and this has kept us on track as we work to accomplish our goal. Jessica is also well spoken and persuasive; talk to her for a few minutes and you will probably end the conversation by donating your car. Kyle is a good member because he was the first person to put us into contact, making our group text message.

Overall each member has many strengths but utilizes the ones that are most needed in our group. I don't doubt that all 4 of my group members could perform well in public speaking or organization etc but I think that we have all found that through collaboration of our skill sets, we have become a very strong team. I believe this because I know that we all respect one anthers work and care more about the success of BLF and Goodwill's partnership than we do our own personal gain. Through this, however, I have seen all of my team members grow their leadership and team skills. 

Getting to know Joe :)

On Wednesday I attended The MCGC event “Breaking the Color Barrier: Interracial Relationships”. Joe is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha a chapter within the Multicultural Greek Council and therefore not only attended the event but also sat on the panel board for this discussion. The event was incredibly interesting because it focused on the difficulties of dating someone that came from a different background or culture. Joe, among others, shared that he was learning new religions, foods, etc through this new relationship. Although this event was supposed to be about dating, I definitely think it should be interpreted as the importance of just getting to know someone new. It was discussed that there is this fear of approaching someone because you might not know what you have in common or know what you would talk about.

Joe and I had dinner at Panera this week and although I wasn’t exactly nervous, I was curious what exactly we would talk about. Besides BLF, we were both a part of Greek life and had younger sisters but our conversation wasn’t limited at all by our differences. We talked about his religious explorations, tattoos, our time in high school and aspects of college we are experiencing.

It was a really fun and interesting dinner and I am thankful that we got the push to break some of the walls as we continue getting to know one another.