Today at PEN, we got to write down notes about different events so that it would be easier for people to skip to a part of the video they wanted to see. Nathaniel and I were got the same video which was a public meeting about an incarcerated writer in China called Liu Xiao Bo. He is also the president of the branch of PEN in China. He has been judged to be imprisoned for 8-15 years for a poem containing around 100 chinese characters. The reason why they think he should be imprisoned for said poem is because if you read the first character of every line, it said that one of the Chinese military leaders was drunk with power. While we were taking notes on the video, Stacy served us cookies, water, and orange juice. The cookies were amazing. Anyway, after we finished taking notes we shared and compared our notes with Stacy. All in all, we had a great time, and we got amazing cookies.

Something that well in the teach-in was in the second workshop was when Catherine and I refilled the paint for the kids. We took the “orders” of a certain color paint from the kids who needed and went inside to the lobby and got it for them. Another thing that went well was when we held the paint back in the second workshop so that they were able to finish their actual statement and then they decorated their square with the paint. I liked teaching people for 2 hours manly because I had authority. I was also the person with all the answers. It was exciting. If I could have done something different in the workshop, it would have been that we had a place for the fabric democracy wall. That was pretty much the only part of the teach-in that was challenging and that didn’t go exactly as planned. My lasting learning that I will remember is that China is the country that causes PEN the most problems. What went well in the setup groups was that we worked as a team, that not one person just did everything. The assemblies went fairly well. I think the process was a bit stressful. I think that for the blog posts so that people will remember is that you say that it is due tomorrow and that it is the only homework.

On this visit we had interviewed Stacy at the PEN American Center. Catherine wasn’t able to make it so it was just Danica, Nathaniel, and I. I had around 10 or so questions that weren’t very long or to short, while Danica had 15 very long questions and Nathaniel had around 7 or 8 very long questions. We had the interviewed Stacy in the room where we held the workshop with the kids from the different school. One of my biggest questions was which country gave PEN the most trouble because I have never liked China’s government and wanted to make sure that i was right about them not letting to many artists have free expression. Well, it turns out that I was right about that. After China Cuba had given them the most trouble. After both Nathaniel and I’s questions were answered, we kind of zoned out because Danica still had a lot of questions that we didn’t even think about. Stacy had some orange juice out for Nathaniel because he really likes orange juice. He usually drinks around a carton or so every time we go.

When we were first walking up to the building, i had remembered walking but it a lot with my family from Australia, but never really noticing it. As we walk into the elevator, one person joins us. Then, as the elevator’s doors were closing, someone asks us to hold them for her. When we let her in, we realize, hey, it’s Stacy! She had just ran back from getting orange juice for the kids that were coming so that they could write to imprisoned writers. When the kids arrived, we had showed them what they needed to do, and how. We also helped serve both water and orange juice. Since there was a couple of kids there who had already done the activity, there was a long banner which people wrote on their opinion of what freedom of expression is. Danica, Nathaniel, Catherine, and I all wrote what we thought freedom of expression was on the banner once everyone had their drinks and were just putting some finishing touches on their cards.