Week Ending

Meocha Belle 6/13

Today ended my week as co-leader for the Paris Noir 2010 cohort. Although the position as leader is not foreign to me, the space and people were, making the beginning of this task a challenging one. I had been placed with a person that I had known of for four years but never had had a conversation with. And even though I did not have a friendly relationship with this person, my feelings were not directed one way or the other for them. To my surprise, I learned that she held some animosity towards me, when we first met and were given our duties for the week. She felt as though I was impossible to work with, because of my facial features. Without speaking to me or trying to get to know me, she admittedly assumed that I had a permanent attitude. With this revelation, I knew that this was going to be a long, awkward week having to work together.
In this assumption of mines, I was wrong. We both made efforts to respect and value the input of each other. By doing so, we were able to successfully lead the group without many problems. Unexpectedly, there was also unforced conversation between the both of us. What shocked me even more of this experience was when my co-leader announced to the group that her reward for the week was getting to know me in our weekly meeting. She also expressed that I was a "cool person" that is just misunderstood. Even though that statement was loaded in itself, I appreciated the gesture whether genuine or not.
After visiting the old stomping grounds of Josephine Baker lead by Madame Wells today, I would say today too was a pretty good day. We traveled all over Champs- Elysees on foot and got to see the theaters Josephine Baker performed in and stores of the designers that styled her.



~Paris Noir 2010