The End of a Semester

So, it's the end of another semester. I can't believe it's already done. I guess I always feel this way at the end of the semester, but I can't really help it.

Let's recap shall we:
- Moved-in and was an orientation coordinator for the freshman girls in Monroe. Had a lot of fun meeting the girls on my floor and taking them to all the orientation events.
- Outreach Tulane. Good times. Finally have a picture from that by the way (This is Chelsea "taking my blood pressure".. We had invited TEMS to help out at our community health fair):
- Started classes. Had a very busy schedule, but I enjoyed all of them.
- I turned 20! Good times.
- Homecoming. Greatest week ever. Lots of free Tulane give-aways and spirit!
- A lot more community service things. Mentored with Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Best Buddies, Project Grandpeople, and science club.
- A lot of fun GWA (Green Wave Amabassadors) things like giving tours and having student lunches.
-WiS things - met a lot of new people and got to have dinner with Celine Cousteau. Awesome.
- Halloween. Who doesn't love Halloween?
- Po-Boy fest. Yum.
- Couldn't have asked for a better Thanksgiving.
- Finals. Not so fun.

But now, I've finished. And it's been a great semester!

So, let's see what's in store for me. I'm going to be going to Arizona to visit a couple of my cousins (one of them is actually an '05 Tulane graduate who just graduated pharmacy school), then I'll be at home in California hanging out for the holidays, and then I'll be in Pittsburgh before I head back here for spring semester!

Anyways, I'll hopefully be posting a few times over break. Can't wait for the spring! More on that when it gets closer though. For now, I hope everyone has happy holidays!

Po-Boy fest and Thanksgiving things

Hey all,

So, today was the last day of classes! I definitely cannot believe that it's already the end of my last fall semester here at Tulane. I'm getting old.

Anyways, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday. I know I did! It was a great break away from school, that's for sure!

One really cool thing that I got to go to before leaving for Thanksgiving holiday, though, is going to the annual Po-Boy festival. Maeve and I headed over to Oak street (like a fifteen minute walk at most) and joined the crowd of people that had congregated on that Sunday to taste some of the finest food New Orleans had to offer.


So Maeve and I, of course, had to get po-boys (which for all of you non-New Orleanians is basically a sandwhich... but infinitely more delicious). Maeve got a cochon de lait po-boy which is a roasted pork sandwhich and it had some coleslaw and other good things like that in it. I got a classic fried shrimp po-boy and it was so good. Notice the emphasis on the so. (Unfortunately Maeve's sandwich got cut off in the picture)


Anyways, it was a really fun afternoon. There was lots of live music, some people dancing, and did I mentioned the great food? Oh. We both also tried this amazing pumpking pie cake which was one of the best things I think I have ever eaten in my entire life from Bozo's restaurant (which we need to find again because that pumpkin pie cake was like heaven in my mouth!)

But now that classes are over. Do you know what that means? Yes, folks. It's time for finals, unfortunately. My schedule doesn't look too, too bad. But it's pretty bad. I have lots and lots of papers to write and onle a couple of actual tests. But yeah. Wish me luck!

I'll be sure to write at least one more post before I leave for home! Good luck with applications, y'all!

Notes on Community Service

As you all probably have figured out by now, I love doing community service. I mean, I wouldn't even be here at Tulane if it wasn't for community service!

So, a couple weekends ago, I had the pleasure of accomponying my friend Seth to an awards dinner where he was honored by Operation Reach as a finalist for a young leader in the community award. It was a really fun meeting all sorts of people in the community who are making a big difference in the community.


I was really proud of Seth who, as chairperson of CACTUS, works hard to bring about change right here in the city!

On a similar vein, I had dinner this past weekend with CACTUS with LUCAP (the Loyola University Commuity Action Program) which is Loyola University's community service organization. A few LUCAP-ers were kind enough to host a bunch of us CACTUS-ers at their house, and we had a delicious home-cooked meal (I must steal Chad's sweet potato/corn/jalepeno soup recipe) and talked about social issues that both of our universities are trying to fight in the city. It was cool meeting with like-minded students from our neighboring university!

Anyways, I have a really busy week ahead with various midterm papers and such, but after that, it's going to be Thanksgiving! So I'm really excited!

I hope you all got your early applications in time!

Halloween

Wow. Can you believe that it's already November? I can't! It's only two and a half more weeks until Thanksgiving, and then after that it's only a couple of weeks until the end of the semester. Crazy! Where did all the time go?

Well, this past weekend was Halloween, and of course, being in New Orleans, it was a lot of fun.

One of the great opportunities that I got to participate in was Boo at the Zoo which was held at the Audubon Zoo (which is practically right across the street from campus). It was a Halloween night for families with music, food, games, and trick-or-treating. The best part? All the proceeds went to benefit the zoo and the Children's Hospital.

We (me, Maeve, and Katie, pictured below) got placed at the "Big Kid's Games" section and we were in charge of a booth where kids tried to throw ping pong balls into the haunted house that you can kind of see behind us in the picture for tickets. Also, in case you were wondering, I was dressed up as a fairy princess and Maeve was a bird...


On Halloween, I hung out with a few friends and went to a Halloween party. Below is a picture of me (dressed up as Tom Cruise from Risky Business), Holly (a cowgirl), and Seth (dressed up an matronly woman) being silly.


Anyways, that's all from my end. Big perspective weekend on Sunday. Can't wait to meet some more future Tulanians!

Celine Cousteau

Hey all,

As always, I am apologizing for not posting in a little while. I swear these things will come weekly instead of every other week. Keep me to it!

Anyways, I have some really exciting updates from here in New Orleans. I just came from a dinner reception with none other than Celine Cousteau, Jacques Cousteau's granddaughter! It was great! She was invited to come speak by the Newcomb Institute and since I was the chair of the Women in Science committee in charge of bringing a speaker to campus, we worked to set up her lecture, a nice daytime reception with a small group of undergraduates, and the dinner reception I just came from.

Celine talked to us about the importance of environment conservation, sustainability, and giving back to others since we are all part of the same human species. It was a really great lecture. And then dinner at Daisy Bistro was amazing and we got an even more intimate chat with her over some great food.

Anyways, another great opportunity provided by Tulane which I thoroughly enjoyed and had to gush about. Celine was even nice enough to take a picture with some of the girls who came to the dinner and me!

Have a great Halloween weekend everyone!

Homecoming

It's been a crazy busy week of midterms and papers to write (which explains my momentary absence) but I'm back now because it's fall break so we have a couple of days off of school which is a nice change.

So last week was homecoming week and homecoming/parents/alumni weekend! It was a great week of Tulane spirit. They had fun activities planned all week that even the rain couldn't drive away. There was the annual powderpuff game, a pep rally and a homecoming concert, featuring Augusta (picture below). Augustana was really great live and it was really great break from all the midterm madness.


I also got to participate in a parents/alumni community service project on Friday as part of homecoming. We worked with Project Greenlight and had some parent and alumni volunteers come help out as well changing lightbulbs in the Hollygrove neighborhood to more energy efficient ones.

Then on Saturday was the homecoming game and a bunch of fun tailgating. Like all of our other football game, we headed over to the Superdome. There were a bunch of different tents set up from the various fraternities and sororities, Tulane's various schools (the Tulane-Newcomb Undergraduate college had really great jambalaya), and various alumni reunions. Below is a picture of Megan, Amanda, and I venturing over on the busses.


Anyways, even though we didn't win the game, it was a really fun week and weekend. We also had a campus preview day that Sunday and I got to meet some prospective students! Good luck with applications, y'all!

My 20th Birthday

Hey all!

It's been a really busy couple of weeks (which is why I haven't posted for a little bit), but here's my update on everything I've been up to at Tulane.

I've had so much schoolwork to get done. And on top of that, I had some CACTUS stuff to get done (more on that in my next post) and then some Women in Science things as well.

Anyways, it was my 20th birthday last Friday, and so I thought I would share some pictures from that. We went to La Thai, possibly one of my favorite restaurants in the city, for dinner. It was delicious. Then, we went back to my apartment and had some birthday cake, baked by the two best friends/roommates a girl could ask for (Amanda and Arielle). It was a great birthday!

Also, it was the first big prospective student weekend this past weekend, and I got to meet some really cool prospective students on the tour I gave. Hopefully I'll get to see you around campus this year as you preview our school!If you've already submitted an application, good luck!

September-ness

Hey all!

I feel like I am constantly apologizing for not posting in a while, but once again, I'm sorry for not having posted in a couple of weeks.

Let's see. What's been up? Well, I've just had a lot of schoolwork to do. It's amazing how much reading I've had to do since school has started. I guess I've never really taken a semester full of liberal arts classes, and for the first time in my college career I have papers to write every week and lots of pages to get through every night. But it's okay. As least I find the topics interesting.

One really cool class I'm taking is this persuasive writing class with Professor Joseph Letter. We spend most of class in discussion and Professor Letter is a really great lecturer. One really cool thing is that since the class is about how to apply ancient rhetoric to the modern day, we can use sources such as Youtube and Wikipedia. It's great!

Also, I've been doing a lot of stuff for CACTUS which is always really fun. And when I get the chance, I hang out with those crazy people I call my friends. Example:

My roommates, Amanda and Arielle, and I holding up our friend David in our living room? I honestly couldn't tell you why we thought this was a great idea for a picture... Haha.

Oh! Actually, I gave my first couple of tours for the new year last week. They were really fun. I love meeting new prospective students!

Anyways, that's all from my end. I'll be better with posting from now on. Actually, my twentieth birthday is next week, so hopefully I'll have some pictures from that up! Hope to see you around campus!

Outreach Tulane

Hey all!

I've been so swamped with first week work, that it's been a little hard trying to find time to update, but here goes. I am loving all of my classes so far; they're all pretty interesting. And! Not having Friday classes is probably one of the best life decisions I have ever made.

One of the things that I have been super busy with for the past few weeks has been helping with Outreach Tulane. For those of you who don't know, Outreach Tulane is the big campus-wide community service day that CACTUS (the Community Action Council of Tulane University Students) and the Center for Public Service (and various other organizations on campus) put on every year the Saturday after move-in. Basically, it's about a thousand volunteers who help out at various sites around the city. Now can you see why I haven't had time to update?

The day turned out really great, actually. We had a great turnout (even though everyone had to be unreasonably early for college students on a Saturday), and we did some great work in the community. One great (Project Greenlight) installed energy efficient lightbulbs in houses. One group cleaned up cemetaries (Save our Cemetaries).

My group actually got to help out with the Community Health Fair and Play Day by playing with kids whose parents came to get health screenings from the Tulane community health bus. This was all part of a bigger day that was the 4th Commemoration of Hurricane Katrina, and it was great to see Tulane students be able to be part of the New Orleans community. Actually, it was just great to see the community come together as a whole to commemorate the 4th anniversary, to mourn the losses, and to celebrate what has been regained.

Anyways, I don't have pictures from the day of yet (yeah... sorry... I suck), but I promise pictures as the semester progresses!

Moving back in

Hey y'all!

Sorry I've been a little MIA, but here's the good news, I'm back in New Orleans! I moved in on Wednesday into my little on-campus apartment, and I've just been having a good time decorating and getting ready for freshmen orientation since I'm an orientation coordinator.

So all of today was spent moving boxes up and down the twelve stories of Monroe (so tiring... and with humidity? Killer!... but it was great to hear parents hear they appreciate it) and now I'm heading over to a floor meeting with my girls and the RA.

There are so many great orientation activities, I'm so excited! My favorite one is called Reily Rocks. If you don't know, Reily is the recreation center here on campus (and our gym as well). And they put on an event for freshmen where they have a night of video games, great food, and fun activities. Oh! And the free t-shirt is usually awesome.

Also, I'm looking forward to meeting my Newcomb Little tomorrow for the pinning ceremony. (More on that later)

And another great one? The riverboat cruise. Basically it's a dinner cruise for the freshmen (and since I'm an OC I get to go too!) and there's music, dancing, and great views of the city, too! Here's a picture of Arielle and me on the cruise freshmen year... (wow, I look so much younger...). It was one of the first times we ever hung out as roommates, and it was a lot of fun. We also met a few of our good friends that night, too!

Okay! Have to go now! Don't want to be late. But I'll start posting regularly again after this entry! Oh! Also, classes start on Monday! We'll see how that goes...

August already?

Hello there!

Can you believe it's August already? In almost exactly two weeks I'll be taking off on a plane to New Orleans. I can't believe it that summer has gone by so quickly. It's been a really nice summer - I met some great new people, explored both San Francisco and Berkeley, made a little money, learned a little bit, hung out with old friends, watched a lot of Giants baseball and slept a lot. What more could I ask for?

So what's in store for me next year, you ask? Well, I don't know how many of you know this but next year is going to be my last year at Tulane! Can you believe that I'm graduating (fingers crossed) in the spring? I can't! But I am totally excited and can't wait for the year to start. Things I'm looking forward to:

- Moving into and decorating an on-campus apartment with two of my best friends.
- seeing friends who I haven't seen all summer
- orientation (I'm going to be helping out at Monroe this year!)
- Newcomb Big Sisters/Little Sisters (more on this one later)
- Outreach Tulane
- meeting the new community service scholars
- seeing my mentee Myles again
- homecoming weekend
- GWA stuff (I love meeting prospective students... I hope to travel somewhere cool this coming semester to talk... I can't wait until Jeff sends out the city list!)
- Mardi Gras (haha... I know it's in the Spring... but come on! What's there not to be excited about?)

There's probably a lot on that list that I'm not remembering right now because, as always, there's a lot to be excited about here in New Orleans and at Tulane!

So, good-bye summer, hello Tulane! See you all in a couple of weeks!

Berkeley and Baseball

Hey all!

Quick summer update in case you were curious what I have been up to away from Tulane. Well, I definitely miss New Orleans, but I'm loving my time here in California. Like I mentioned in my June post, I moved up to Berkeley to take a summer class (which has not been very fun... but it was necessary so I just have to deal, I guess) It's been really fun here hanging out with friends from high school and whatnot.

Actually, a couple of weeks ago, I got to meet up with a friend of mine from Tulane who is working in the Bay Area this summer. She and I actually went to a southern-cooking restaurant in San Francisco. She had the gumbo (pretty tasty... not as good as the real thing), and I had some really good mac and cheese. Mmm. It was reallly nice to see a familiar school face!

Other than that, I've been trying to catch as many baseball games as I can because I absolutely love baseball and the San Francisco Giants (who have been doing remarkably well this season!). The stadium is actually a quick subway ride across the bay, and I love spending afternoons at a game. Here's a picture with me and Lous Seal, the Giants mascot, from last night (sorry the lighting isn't very good!)

Anyways, that's all from me. I can't wait to see a bunch of new faces in the fall! Hope everyone's summer is going well, too!

June Things

Hello all!

It's been a little while since I've updated, but here goes.

I've been home now for about a month and a half, and it's been really fun (my mom's cooking is delicious!) I'm actually taking a summer class at UC Berkeley this summer, so I moved into an apartment in Berkeley and am enjoying my time so far! I'm still looking for a job (I had an interview at a retail clothing store, so keep your fingers crossed for me on that one), am probably going to start volunteering at some local elementary schools next week, and am looking forward to meeting new people.

Other than that, I went to my brother's eighth grade graduation and a few of my friends' younger siblings' high school graduation. Oh. And this weekend? Going to my first SF Giants game of the season (finally!)

Can't wait to meet all the new freshman in the fall! Hope everyone is having a nice summer!

End of Sophomore Year

Hey all!

I'm typing this entry (my last of my sophomore year) from Southern California where I'm hanging out for a few days with my family who lives down here before I go back home for the summer.

So, that means that somehow I managed to survive all my finals and that I somehow managed to pack away all my worldly belongings into a few boxes and suitcases.

This year has been a great year, and I hope that you guys enjoyed reading my blog as much as I enjoyed writing it. I'll post a couple of times over the summer, but other than that, I hope to see you all in the fall!

And congrats to our graduates of 2009! Roll Wave!

Arielle's birthday and finals

Hey all! Sorry it's been a little while since I've updated, but I have a good reason, I promise! It's been final exam period, and I've had so, so, so much to study. So this entry is going to be a short one because I actually have a physics exam tomorrow morning and still have to take a copious amount of notes. It was my roommate/one of my best friend, Arielle's, twentieth birthday last week so we took a little break from studying and celebrated!

Below is a picture of Arielle and our friend Aaron at PF Chang's where went to dinner. It was very tasty.


Here is a picture of Arielle, me, Meghan, and Amanda after dinner hanging out uptown.

Anyways, I hope Arielle had a nice birthday! I know I had a nice time celebrating with all of our friends!

Okay. Back to my physics book now. I know all of the decisions about college have all probably been made by now, and all of you who are going to Tulane, I can't wait to see you in the fall! All of you who are going elsewhere, I wish you the best there, too! I wish finals would be over now... please?

The Desire Community and Dinner with Dr. Cherry

So I'm still swamped with so much work, but I decided to take a little time out to take a study break and write about this great opportunity that I had last night. I had the privilege of eating dinner at Dr. Cynthia Cherrey's home with members from the Tulane and Desire community.

First, who is Dr. Cynthia Cherrey, you may ask? Dr. Cherrey is the Vice-President for Student Affairs here at Tulane and Dean of Students (you can click on the link for a fuller bio) which means that she works closely with the students and student life here at Tulane. Since I am a community service scholar, I was invited to her beautiful home yesterday evening for a delicious dinner catered by Tulane's own Olive Blue (GWA uses them to cater as well!) to bring together members from the Tulane and the Desire community which included students, Tulane faculty and staff, and members of the Desire neighborhood.

Second, what is the Desire neighborhood? The Desire neighborhood is one of the housing projects in New Orleans located in the upper Ninth ward which I had the opportunity to spend a day at last semester on a Spotlight tour conducted by Tulane to show students different areas of New Orleans. We actually got to play with the children of the neighborhood that day as the community members put on a community yard sale to raise money for the community center that they are trying to build. Below are a couple pictures of some of us playing with the kids at Desire

There were two very moving points in the evening last night. One was when Luke, one of the Tulane students at the dinner who is part of the Roosevelt Institute, spoke about how what people who do community service fail to realize sometimes is that they think they are knights on a white horse coming to rescue the people they are trying to help when in fact most of the time what the people need is a friend with a helping hand. And what we're coming as are friends with helping hands.

The second point was when Miss Julie, one of the community leaders from Desire, spoke about how she know that the Desire neighborhood needed help, and how historically, their neighborhood has been overlooked and "was nothing to everybody." She was moved to tears by the fact that an institution as big as Tulane would help out people that everyone else overlooked. She was truly so grateful that Tulane was helping Desire raise money to build a community center. I was glad I was able to witness such a beautiful moment.

Anyways, that was what I had to share for today. Only one more week of Destination Tulane! Hope to see you there! I've met so many great prospective students already, and I want to see all of you in the fall! I'll be an OC in Monroe!

Speakers

Hello! I hope everyone had a nice Easter or Passover!

I have a ton of work to do before finals (which are in two weeks) including an organic chemistry test next week, a public health presentation on ebola due next week, physics lab due tomorrow, and various club responsibilities, so this entry is going to be a little short and all about the various speakers I have heard speak at Tulane. I have heard a lot of speakers here, but I'll mention my favorite three here.

President Barack Obama was definitely very, very inspiring to hear speak at Fogelman Arena. We waited in line at 7:30 am for his 10:00 am speech last year when he was still a presidential hopeful. His speech was very moving, and it was touching to hear him speak about the problems facing New Orleans and hearing his proposals about protecting the wetlands and providing more for the public schools.

from http://my.barackobama.com/

Sir Salman Rushdie, the famous author (Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses), was also another one of my favorite speakers. When he came to speak to us last year, he was very funny and eloquent, and I left feeling just a little bit more enlightened. I told my friend Maeve who went with me that I wish I could be his grand-daughter so I could listen to him speak all the time.

from www.tulane.edu/

Anderson Cooper, the news anchor and journalist who I have had a big crush on forever, came to speak last year as well, and I can still say I have a big crush on him. He spoke about the importance of rebuilding New Orleans and about his unique experience as a journalist.

from www.tulane.edu/

Anyways, that's all from me. Wish me luck with all my work! And I still wish all the college-bound kids luck with their decisions! Hope to see you at Tulane!

Crawfest 2009

Yesterday was of my favorite days of the year - Crawfest!

What is Crawfest you might ask? Well, it's an annual music festival that the Associated Student Body puts on that has tons of crawfish, booths with local arts and crafts vendors, and two stages with great musical acts going on throughout the entire day! And admission was free with a Tulane ID! Bands like Funk.Soul.Family, the Revivalists, and RJD2 as the headliner. It was pretty much the best day ever. What more could you want than delicious crawfish, great music, beautiful weather, and the best company?

Anyways, below are some pictures from the day of. Enjoy!

The very large Crawfest banner

Seth and his new little crawfish friend

Sam and Arielle digging in to their crawfish.

Oscar holding up a bacon brownie that he bought. Yes. That's right. A bacon brownie. He said it tasted like a regular brownie with just the slight aftertaste of grease.

Regen showing off the crawfish she's about to eat.

Arielle, me, and Amanda after a long day in the sun.

Newcomb

Hey all! Sorry it's been a little while since I last posted, but it's been a little hectic with midterms and then spring break (nothing noteworthy to speak of, though, since I went home to just relax for the week).

What I really wanted to talk about, though, was one of the great assets on campus for women (and men) which is the Newcomb College Institute. For those of y'all who don't know, Tulane University used to be for just men and its complementary women's college was Newcomb College. Even though classes were integrated in the 20s, it wasn't until after Hurricane Katrina that they two undergraduate colleges finally combined to form the Tulane-Newcomb Undergraduate College that it is today. Below is a picture of Newcomb Hall.



The Newcomb College Institute is what remains of the old Newcomb College and tries to keep the old Newcomb traditions alive. Even though the last Newcomb College class is graduating this year, Newcomb has a lot of great programming directed at the young women here on campus such as student groups, speakers, etc.

One of my favorite activities that Newcomb has is called "Friday at Newcomb". They provide a great lunch about three Fridays a month and also have really great speakers come in and speak about interesting topics. The best part? It's all free!

A student group that I am involved in is Women in Science. As a public health major, it's great to have a network of other women in the science field to connect with. We have a lot of professors come in to speak to us about whatever they'd like. They tell us about their research or sometimes just about their own personal experience with being a women in a science field. I've met some great people through Newcomb. Me with Mediha, Pearl, and Sam - three of the other executive board members of Women in Science (I am the Community Outreach Chair).


So that's a bit of Newcomb for you. Also, it's Destination Tulane all this coming month, so hopefully you'll see me around campus if you come to visit (which you should!).

CACTUS Field Day

I know I've talked a lot about CACTUS (the Community Action Council of Tulane University Students) already, but I'm really involved in it and love the community service activities I get to do because I'm involved in it.

Last Friday was CACTUS field day in which about 200 kids from various local elementary schools were invited to come play on Newcomb quad. CACTUS encouraged other student organizations such as Greek life, student government, ROTC, etc to come out and sponsor a table with different events for the kids, and we had kettle corn, snowballs, and even a rock climbing wall!

The boys of Phi Gamma Delta "mummifying" kids with toilet paper.

A member of the juggling club teaches a little girl to juggle.

Mostly, I sat at the Women in Science table. We had cookies and bought frosting and sprinkles that we let the kids decorate. It got a little (okay.. a lot) messy, but it was a lot of fun.

Lindsey helping a kid with some sprinkles

Other than that, I've just been really busy with school. I went to this "Undoing Racism" workshop this weekend that was really interesting and tackled a lot of issues surrounding race in New Orleans. I also had an Orientation Coordinator meeting on Sunday for next fall and I'm so excited to get to meet all the incoming freshman and help show them around (I'm going to be in Butler but they might move me to Monroe... so if you're living there next year, you'll probably see me around).

What else? Oh. Next week is spring break, and I'm going back home to California to just chill out for a bit. I am very excited for that.

Anyways, that's it for now! I hope everyone gets the chance to visit Tulane before they have to make their final college decisions!

Tulane Athletics

So I have so much work to do this week, so this is going to be a short post all about Tulane athletics.

If you didn't know, Tulane is a Division I varsity school in Conference USA. Currently, we have 11 sports ranging from men's and women's basketball to baseball to women's golf.

Currently, the big sport season that is upon us is baseball season. Our team plays at Turchin Stadium which is right on campus and had is inaugural season last season. I personally love baseball so going to the games with my friend is a good weekend activity (although since I have been swamped with work, I have done nothing of the sort as of late)

During football season, our games are played at the Superdome, and students are bused there for free. Below is a picture of my roommate, Arielle, and I last year with the school mascot, Riptide at the first home football game of the season. I love Tulane football; I even went to a game for my last birthday!

Anyways, definitely check out Tulane athletics. Our athletes put a lot of hard work and dedication to make our teams great!

Also, we just had prospective honors weekend here, and I hope that all the prospective honors students are having/had a good time!

Mardi Gras 2009

Hey everyone! So Mardi Gras weekend was last weekend, and I think I've finally recovered from all the madness. Mardi Gras was fun as always.

So let's recap. One of my really good friends from grade school, Yana, came to visit me for the weekend. She flew in on Friday night and stayed until Sunday evening. Basically, on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, we went to parades and caught lots of beads. The picture below is of my friends Amanda, Regen, and Meghan (apparently all wind-swept) after a parade on Saturday night. Notice that Meghan caught a feather boa... I was so jealous!

Here is a picture of my friend Ashleigh and me on one of the parade routes:


Here is a picture of one of the floats that we saw on Saturday:

On Sunday, I actually went to the French Quarter during the day to show Yana around, and she absolutely loved the French Market and the performers across from Jackson Square. It was a lot of fun; she's even planning our Mardi Gras costumes for Senior year!

On Tuesday, a few of my friends and I planned to go to the Zulu parade which was at 8 in the morning, but we were so exhausted that instead we just stayed on campus all day and ordered in Chinese food for dinner.

All in all, it was a great Mardi Gras, but I'm glad we're all back to reality now... well, kind of glad because now I have to study for an organic chemistry quiz on Monday and a sociology midterm on Tuesday.

Community Service Scholars and CACTUS projects

So I don't know if y'all know this, but I am a community service scholar. What exactly does that mean? (In case you don't want to click on the link). Well, I'm here at Tulane with a scholarship for doing community service work in high school (I was really involved with this organization which put on Girl's Economic Power Day that taught high school girls how to deal with all things relating to money).

What being a scholar entails is having to do forty hours of community service a year, going to various development meetings, and getting a mentor who would help me develop my own communtiy service project here at Tulane.

Last year, my mentor was a Senior named Brittany who I still am in contact with is one of my best resources even though she graduated. She was the project coordinator of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program at Tulane under our big community service organization the Community Action Council of Tulane University Students (CACTUS) and so I got involved with both Big Brothers/Big Sisters and CACTUS.

Now, my mentor is my friend Seth (pictured below) who has deemed himself my "life coach" and tells me that I need chill out because he thinks I do too much.



He is also a project coordinator of a project called Paint Rally which is a great project where we go out and paint schools almost every Saturday (contact him at srushton@tulane.edu or me if you are in town and want to volunteer a Saturday with us at Paint Rally!). Below is a cute picture of my roommate, Arielle, when she came to help paint a school (obviously not a clean task)

Basically, I love doing community service work and am glad I get to go somewhere where community service is really valued and needed. I have met some of my best friends doing community service and had a great time while also getting to make a difference. What else could you ask for?

Mardi Gras 101

Mardi Gras is coming up in a little over two weeks, and I am very excited! So, I thought would write about my past Mardi Gras experience to give you a little insight into what Mardi Gras has been like for me.

Since I am only a sophomore, I have only had one Mardi Gras last year, and it was so much fun! Everyone has this idea (at least I did) that Mardi Gras was spent on Bourbon St. doing things only seen on Girls Gone Wild to get a string of beads, when in fact, it is much more family friendly and less scandalous than that altogether.

It might be a little hard to believe, but believe it! I only went down to the French Quarter once during Mardi Gras last year and it was during the daytime before any of the parades started just so that a friend of mine from out of town could see what the Quarter looked like. Mostly, we spend Mardi Gras on St. Charles St. where the street is lined with tents and lawn chairs and barbeques and families waiting on the parade route. It's a lot of fun - kind of like a picnic except that everyone in New Orleans is invited! Below is a picture of Arielle and Amanda and me coming home from a parade last year (notice the abundance of beads!)

Here are a few fun facts about Mardi Gras:

- The actual date of Mardi Gras this year is Tuesday, the 24, but parades started running as early as this weekend! (the first being Krewe du Vieux) As a Tulane student we actually get school off on Monday the 23 and the next day!

- The parades that are the centerpieces of Mardi Gras festivities are run by social clubs called "krewes". Examples include the Knights of Sparta, the Krewe of Pegasus, and Krewe of Orpheus. These krewes also hold balls (usually masquerade) throughout the Mardi Gras season. Below is a picture of my friend Gerardo and me at a masquerade ball that Tulane put on last year.

- Gold, green, and purple are the colors of Mardi Gras!

- Despite what people think, all you need to do to get beads during Mardi Gras is stand there and hold out your hand! Seriously! You catch so many beads! In fact, most people bring ladders for the height advantage (the little kids who sit on ladders get the best beads!!)

- They don't just throw beads at people from parade floats! They throw weird trinkets, stuffed animals, cups, frisbees... you name it! At this one parade, Zulu, they throw coconuts to a few lucky few in the crowd! Of course, my friends and I managed to catch four between the four of us! (The one with the eyelashes and braids is mine! It's actually still sitting on my bookshelf!)

So that's a little bit about Mardi Gras! Did I mention I'm excited!

Amanda's Birthday

On January 28, one of my best friends, Amanda, turned 20 which means that we had to celebrate, of course!

It has become a tradition for a few of my friends and I to eat at this great Indian restaurant, Nirvana, on Magazine Street (I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before). Anyways, we were there the weekend before Amanda's birthday per tradition when I looked at the buffet line, and lo and behold, there was someone in the line who looked remarkably like Jennifer Coolidge (think American Pie, Legally Blonde, Best in Show, etc). I turned to my friends (Amanda, Arielle, and Meghan) who also agreed that the woman in line looked like her. Long story short after arguing if it would be rude to ask her or not, Arielle took the initiative to ask if she was Jennifer Coolidge, AND IT WAS! It was really exciting! We told her it was Amanda's birthday (and she wished Amanda a happy birthday) and even took a pictures with us:

Now I can say I've met a celebrity!

For Amanda's actual birthday, though, we went to this restaurant called O'Henry's which serves you a free birthday steak as long as you can show ID that proves it's your birthday. Needless to say, Amanda got her steak:

We just hung out the rest of the night with a bunch of our friends, recalling memories of living in Monroe (6th floor, represent!) and ridiculous hurricane evacuation stories. I think Amanda had a nice 20th!

Audubon Park

I don't know how many of you know this, but Gibson Hall (the original building of Tulane University) is located on St. Charles Street and right across from it is Audubon Park.

Audubon is super pretty, and Tulane (and Loyola) students (as well as locals) use it to run, play golf, or just hang out. Personally, I think it's a great place to study when it's warm or to have a picnic with friends. For my birthday this year, my friends (left to right: Arielle, Hannah, Amanda, and Maeve) we had picnic in Audubon with some food from Whole Foods (I highly recommend the potato salad).

Audubon park is also home to the Audubon Zoo which I haven't been to yet, but a lot of my friends have said that it's really cool. Apparently, they also take the elephants out for walks in the park some days!

If you go through the park and past Magazine Street, you go to this area that's know as "the Fly" which is on the banks of the Mississippi and has a lot of picnic spots. It's just another place to go on the weekend with friends with a frisbee or a soccer ball and some food and just relax. Below is a picture of me, Meghan, and Maxine at the Fly for Maxine's birthday last spring.

I can't wait until the spring again!

First week back

So, I got back to Tulane last Saturday and have been here for a little over a week now.

My classes are really interesting this semester. Of course organic chemistry and physics are still a little too dry for my liking, but both my public health are interesting, and my sociology class is really cool (the professor is really cool!)

Other than that, it's been really nice seeing all of my friends. My roommate, Arielle's, younger sister, Leila, actually was in town for the weekend, so it was great having a third roommate! Leila doesn't want to go to college here she doesn't think (she wants to forge her own path since both her older siblings go to school here), but after visiting it was nice to hear that she will probably apply. Below is a picture of us (Arielle, Leila, me, and Amanda) at a party last night which was fun.

Also yesterday, we had a day of service for the Martin Luther King weekend, and I was a project coordinator which means that I (along with a couple of girls from Xavier University nearby) led a group of about sixty students to City Park and we remulched a path there. It was cool to work with and meet students from Tulane, Loyola, Xavier, and Dillard Universities! After lunch, since we had some extra time, we got a chance to explore the sculpture garden (which is free!) that is at the New Orleans Museum of Art which is also located in city park.

My friend Walt and I had fun posing with the statues:




Well that's that. I am really excited for the inauguration! And also if any of ya'll have applied to Tulane (since I know the deadline just passed), I wish you luck!