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.