What I thought was going to be a simple and straightforward workshop on Thursday became complicated rather quickly. I had received a flyer about this workshop a week earlier and did not do my due diligence to learn more about it, but instead looked up what floor it would be on and just figured I would walk in. For that I want to apologize to my freshman classmates (Hector, Johnna and the others who attended with me).  As it turns out, the workshop was hosted by and only for Sigma members and we were not supposed to have been there. That much was evident when the Sigma members who hosted the event were clearly not interested in us freshman joining their workshop. It was a decision that was ultimately made by both the hosts and Ricki Weitzen, who conducted the workshop. She said that it was alright from her point of view and there was no reason to make us leave. As for the workshop itself, it was probably the most useful of the three activities I had to do for freshman seminar. It actually provided useful information and something that will help me down the road (as opposed to a basketball game or art gallery). I would like to thank Ricki Weitzen for being very kind to us freshman and for giving an excellent presentation as well as my fellow freshman for being interactive during the workshop to show the Sigma members that perhaps it wasn’t so bad having us there with them.

Today I attended an exhibition at the Sidney Mishkin Gallery. When I first looked up online that it was on the ground floor of the Administrative Center I just figured that they had a whole wing or large section dedicated to this exhibition. However, I was quite disappointed as the entire thing was a very small room with three mini cubicles each housing three or four paintings a piece. Despite the quantity of the paintings, the quality was very impressive. The paintings, which were done by Ellen K. Levy and Patricia Olynyk, also have an interesting range of style. One cubicle had paintings of skeletons and skulls–done by Olynyk– while another had vibrant colors clashing to resemble a field or sky of rainbows, which were made by Levy. The description piece for the colorful section says that Ellen Levy “focused on organismic life within the process of epigenetic change in an urban landscape.” Thus the creation of a field–a living thing–full of vibrant colors with a lively aura. The gallery may have fallen short of expectations but the artists and their work certainly did not and they deserve more attention and credibility than Baruch’s gallery can offer.

Baruch’s team got off to a really slow start, down 13-4. However, our team really gained momentum coming within 2 to make it 20-18. Regardless, the slow start proved to be much as Brooklyn pulled away to make it 33-21 at halftime. There was not as many people as I thought there would be but when Baruch was playing well I couldn’t tell because the crowd was really loud and into it. It was very impressive to see all the work that went into this game; from the small group that sang in the beginning, to the refs and even the announcer it just seemed like a job well done. I’m generally not a fan of Basketball, even the NBA, but this game didn’t drag along at all. Maybe it was being there with a group of people or the close-knit feel of the stands, but time went by pretty quickly. This game in particular wasn’t the most exciting but it definitely had several good moments.It was mostly enjoyable and i would at least consider doing it again.