Thanksgiving

This holiday that comes around once a year is one for which I am always at a loss of words. I feel that the holiday should be used to show your thankfulness to people who matter in your life. I know this is something I should do much more frequently than I do currently, but I wanted to take this special opportunity to thank my friends and family.
There have been many experiences that I've had in my life that have shaped the person who I am today. Most of these experiences I have had thanks to my family and friends.
The first of those experiences I'll explain was my trip to Kenya. When I was in 8th grade my parents took my sister and I to Kenya. During this trip my entire view on the world changed. I left the U.S. looking at the world as it concerned me and started the trip with this very me vs. them mentality. I left Kenya and returned to the states looking at the world as one in which my role was to show others what a connected world we live in. That was quite the task to explain to my peers.
The next I think is the relationship I have with Leah. She has been my friend since the first day of 7th grade when she approached me on the way from English to Science (we debate if it was this way or vise versa). Anyway, she approached me and said in a terribly high pitched and excited beyond all reason voice, "HI, MY NAME IS LEAH!!! WANT TO BE MY FRIEND!!!" It wasn't that blatant but it really is quite entertaining when I look back on it. Anyway Leah has been one of those people that are there for me for EVERYTHING! Together we've been through loss of relatives, mild to clinical depression, loss of pets, as well as some of the happiest times in my memory. I love you Leah! Thank you!
I suppose another person who battles with Leah for that number one spot in my heart is my sister. She is and always has been there for me regardless of whatever it is I'm going through. I love her more than I could ever explain. She is three years younger than me, but I'm constantly learning from her. She is usually the first one I call when I get either good or bad news. She is one of the most energetic people I know and I feed off of that energy she has. I am really proud of my sister and love her so much! Thanks Scramps!
Katie would be another one I feel very thankful for. Katie and I met in 3rd grade and she always challenges me in every aspect of my life and the person I'm becoming. We don't talk as much now as we used to but every time we do it is just like going back to the beginning. I have learned so many things from Katie and truly am thankful for the relationship. I love you Katie! Thank you!
These are just a few of the people that I feel I owe thanks to on this holiday. Hopefully I will remember to thank them as well as the numerous other people who have helped to create who I am today.

To everyone whom I've left out of this list and will thank personally later thank you!
And to everyone - HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I think this picture is one of the great ones that embrace her personality. I was also remembering when she was very little we used to take her to parades and anytime a marching band went by she got really freaked out by the base drums and used to hide behind dad's chair.

The life of a dog...Juneau

My sweet, tender, and affectionate Siberian Husky named Juneau is going to be put down tomorrow. I thought I should give her a small tribute here as she has been such a large part of my life for so long. We got Juneau from some family friends when my family was living in Pennsylvania. I was around 5 or 6 at the time. She is a beautiful black and white husky with one brown and one blue eye, some of the trademarks of huskies. From the time she entered our family and we changed her name from 'buttons' to the popular 'Juneau' more affectionately Jubes, jubbies, or sweetie.
About two weeks after she joined the family we decided to truly adopt her and take her with us on a family vacation to Niagara Falls. The energy and exuberance she exhibited bounding about with her huge paws and wagging fuzzy tail.
Her entire life has been one filled with an overabundance of joy. When she still had all use of her legs she loved to run. She would escape from a door that was left open and run until we could catch up to her. I always remember being so worried that she wouldn't come back.
My dad would take her on really long runs and she loved to be outside and to be doing what huskies do best; running. The first winter we had her and we let her outside to romp in the snow she loved to pounce on piles of snow and disappear into the white abyss.
Juneau is still a puppy at heart and even once she lost much if not most of her ability to run she still tries despite the pain it causes. Juneau is a wonderful puppy whom I love and I am greatly saddened by the prospect of her imminent passing. I will always love her and miss her.
If anyone would like to share some thoughts please do!

A Sunday Afternoon

It is a Sunday afternoon as I'm sure you can tell from the title of this entry. It has been a weekend full of some really great times and then today - not such a great day. We'll talk about that first. I told one of my prof's on Friday that I was ill and that was the reason I wasn't in class, it was really because I needed some more sleep than I got and it was raining when I woke up. Anyway I had to email this prof to find out when the homework was due. I woke up Saturday sick, and today it just got worse. Talk about bad karma.

Anyway - the good stuff! Friday evening I got to spend with my sister going to a pumpkin patch, then to an art crawl, and then we took the pumpkins home to carve, and watch movies. Anyway it was amazing and really wonderful to spend a great evening with my sister.

Saturday morning I went with a few people to go check out River Fall's Student Center. It just opened (January 2007) and it is entirely green! It is amazing. They used over 90% of the old building in the construction of the new building. The majority of the materials used are from recycled resources. There are bamboo floors from sustainable forests, rain tubs on the roof that are used to flush toilets, light sensors to use as little electricity for lights as possible. They use as much natural lighting as possible and turn off lights if no one is around. It was super cool and we went because we're hoping to be able to convince Hamline's administration to make their new student center green as well. We're getting a new one within the next 5 - 10 years. So checking out one that is awesome was really exciting! After the trip to River Falls I went for a beautiful walk in the park and then got to watch Lost Season 1 episodes. It was great! So now, I have to get healthy and finish my homework!

First MPIRG Meeting and other updates

Hamline's MPIRG (Minnesota Public Interest Research Group) chapter had its first meeting of the year on Monday. It was really really exciting but before I explain why I'll explain a little about the org. MPIRG is a non-profit, non-partisan, student run, state wide social justice org. Ever heard of the Boundary Waters? Yeah, well MPIRG was behind the legislation that created the BWCAW. We also banned fluorocarbons, created the Metro Greenways, pushed the toughest environmental legislation in the nation to pass, plus tons of other stuff - check out the website...http://www.mpirg.org/
In other words we're pretty awesome! Anyway last year our attendance was limited to say the least and therefore this year we went all out during recruitment weeks and had 30 students in attendance plus the leadership for this year. We have a lot of really great and amazing projects planned and what looks like a great group to start the work!

On a completely different note as part of Wesley Scholars I got to listen to this amazing woman from Peru who is working for fair trade in her community. She started a group of women making various objects which are then given to several different groups of Fair Trade organizations. Her story was amazing. Peru in the past few decades has had some intense problems with poverty and governmental agencies. During the 80's insurgent groups (The Shining Path for example) gained large support because they were reacting to the government. The government then came in and began to kill participants of the Shining Path but because no one really knew who was part of the group many innocent and almost always poor residents were killed. The woman we talked to tonight was personally affected by this in several ways. Her mother died when she was 12 leaving her to be the head woman of the house and only a year or so later the government came and took her father. The government did this often during the time and it was referred to as 'disappearing people'. 90% of the people who were disappeared never returned. Yuna's father did, but only because there was one guard who gave him water at one point during his 3 + day interim locked in a cell with nothing to eat or drink. At the end of the time he was taken out to a field and the officer who had been nice to Yuna's father was chosen to kill him. Instead of killing him he shot at the ground twice and told him to go home. I'm not telling this story nearly as good as she did, but hopefully I portrayed some of the amazingness of the discussion in my note. It was wonderful!

Campus Kitchen

So the newest endeavor I've fallen in love with is the campus kitchen. Check out the link below, but for now I'll explain my fascination. On a monthly basis for the past year I've taken groups of students to Simpson Men's Shelter to serve dinner. Getting the food has been a dilemma each and every time. The majority of the last year we were able to get the food from Hamline's food service, but we had to pay an arm and a leg for it. I heard about Campus Kitchen last year and thought that it would be awesome for Hamline to have one (if you don't know what it is check out the website). So, I contacted the campus kitchen at Augsburg to see if it would be possible to get the food from them and we're going to get it for free! (Well if we have a few people go and volunteer - which is not a problem at all!). So now that we have food to serve at Simpson we also have an insider's look at a running campus kitchen and I have a meeting with the dean of students to start the ball rolling on a campus kitchen here at Hamline!!!!!!!! It is sooooooo exciting!


http://www.campuskitchens.org/

Back to School again

Well, it's that time of year again and I am back at school having a blast! This year I'm an orientation leader for new students. Specifically I'm in charge of a group of transfer students. All first year students have a three day orientation that started today and since the transfer students don't have to go to today or tomorrow I get to have a blast and help out in lots of other areas of the orientation process. For example: tonight after all of the required orientation things there was soccer and sundae's where people went to go see women's soccer and got ice cream sundaes. And then after that there were Piper Lawn Games where any incoming students who want to come show up and play tons of large group icebreakers. Things like Captain's Coming, Birdie on a Perch, among other things. (Ask if you have no idea what I'm talking about). Anyway orientation is so much fun!
Other things....I am taking Immunology at Hamline, Advanced German Conversations and Composition at Augsburg, Shakespeare at Augsburg, and German in the Media at Macalaster along with Band and Biosem this semester. I'm also doing some more volunteering at the hospital that I was volunteering at last spring. Plus I'm in charge of Hamline's chapter of MPIRG in addition to being the group leader for the Hunger and Homelessness task force, being in Wesley Scholars, and on the exec board of a new org that was started last spring. The semester is going to be busy but well worth it! I'm so excited! But very sad that it is winding down so quickly!

Ah, Sweet Summer...

Well as it turns out summer is quickly coming to a close so I thought I should put an update as to what I'm up to.

I've been volunteering at Medical College of Wisconsin doing engineered cardiac tissue research. I'm testing the stiffness and contractibility serially for cardic fibroblast tissue that I make from various strains of rats (rats that react well to myocardial infarction to those that don't react as well). It has been slow going but I'm learning a lot!

I also took the MCAT this spring and got my scores back and decided to retake them because I didn't think the scores were as high as I wanted them to be.

Tonight I finished taking an Anatomy and Physiology course that I decided would be fun and fairly educational. It was a good distraction and I learned some stuff, mostly anatomy things, but it was fun most of the time.

My german honors project is coming along slowly. I am researching the Armenian Genocide and working toward comparing perspectives of different nations at the time of the genocide. Thus far I have the american viewpoint well done, a great book for the german (written in Fraktur) that I have had extreme difficulty reading, and a french book or two that my advisor I think is working on, along with possibly a book from a turkish point of view.

I have finally decided on the medical schools I will be applying to which means that the only thing I have left to do is to finish up my personal statement and then focus entirely on studying for the MCAT again and wait for secondary applications to come rolling in. It is all very exciting but super stressful and really expensive! For the amcas (central application agency) just to start an application is $160 plus an additional $30 per school you apply to. Each school has a price for filing their secondary application that ranges from $50 - $100, the MCAT is $230 per time. This process is becoming very expensive, I hope and pray that I get in otherwise I get to repeat the whole thing over again in a year or two. Medical schools are trying really hard to be sure you are set on becoming a doctor before you apply!

I have some short vacations planned for this summer. This weekend I'll be spending Friday night in the cities and Saturday night and Sunday in Madison. Mid August I'll be headed up to the family cabin for some very relaxing rest and quiet study time. It should be exactly what I need.

Fall is coming soon which means I get to start thinking about classes - always a very exciting time of year! I think I have some real great ones lined up for the fall but for now that's all.